The Election Commission of India on Thursday uploaded the data on electoral bonds on its website as received from SBI. The data was made public after the SBI submitted the bond data to the poll body on Tuesday.
The list of donors to political parties through electoral bonds included names of big organisations like Piramal Enterprises Ltd., Muthoot Finance Limited, Pegasus Properties Private Limited, Finolex Cables Ltd, Lakshmi Niwas Mittal, Edelweiss Housing Finance Ltd, GHCL Ltd, Jindal Poly Films Limited, ITC Limited, Vedanta Limited and Bharti Airtel Limited.
Electoral bonds data | Donors to political parties through electoral bonds include Finolex Cables Ltd, Lakshmi Niwas Mittal, Edelweiss Housing Finance Ltd, GHCL Ltd, Jindal Poly Films Limited, ITC Limited, Vedanta Limited
— ANI (@ANI) March 14, 2024
The name of Western UP Power Transmission Company Ltd is also present in the list of donors. The poll body put up on its website the data on electoral bonds on Thursday, a day ahead of the Supreme Court-fixed deadline.
Future Gaming, which was probed by the Enforcement Directorate in March 2022, bought electoral bonds worth over Rs 1,350 crore under two different sets of companies, as reported by news agency PTI.
Among the top corporates, Agarwal’s Vedanta Ltd bought Rs 398 crore worth of bonds, while Sunil Mittal’s three companies together purchased a total of Rs 246 crore worth of bonds, PTI reported. Lakshmi Niwas Mittal bought Rs 35 crore worth of bonds in his individual capacity. Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering, which has bagged contracts of several large infrastructure projects, bought bonds worth Rs 966 crore.
According to the data uploaded by the poll panel, the buyers of electoral bonds included Spicejet, IndiGo, Grasim Industries, Megha Engineering, Piramal Enterprises, Torrent Power, Bharti Airtel, DLF Commercial Developers, Vedanta Ltd., Apollo Tyres, Edelweiss, PVR, Keventer, Sula Wines, Welspun, Sun Pharma, Vardhman Textiles, Jindal Group, Phillips Carbon Black Limited, CEAT tyres, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, ITC, Kaypee Enterprises, Cipla, and Ultratech Cement, Qwik Supply Chain.
On February 15, a five-judge Constitution bench scrapped the Centre’s electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous political funding, calling it “unconstitutional” and ordering disclosure by the EC of donors, the amount donated by them, and the recipients.
Individuals who donated through electoral bonds also included Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Varun Gupta, B K Goenka, Jainendra Shah and one person going by only first name of Monika. Ghaziabad-based Yashoda Super Speciality Hospital purchased 162 bonds, mostly of Rs 1 crore each.
Bajaj Auto bought bonds worth Rs 18 crore, Bajaj Finance Rs 20 crore, three IndiGo firms Rs 36 crore, Spicejet Rs 65 lakh, and Rahul Bhatia of IndiGo bought bonds worth Rs 20 crore, as reported by PTI. Mumbai-based Qwik Supply Chain Pvt Ltd bought bonds worth Rs 410 crore and Haldia Energy Rs 377 crore.
According to a report by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), a total of 28,030 electoral bonds worth Rs 16,518 crore have been sold from March 2018 to January 2024.
