After “wilful disobedience” of the Supreme Court’s historic order, the State Bank of India (SBI) has submitted incomplete data on the electoral bonds to the Election Commission of India (ECI), an act for which the bank got a rap on the knuckles from the Apex Court. The bank was asked to provide the number unique to each electoral bond that would disclose the link between the buyer and the recipient political party. At whose behest the SBI has got the audacity to frequently disregard the top court’s orders is anybody’s guess.
The release of the electoral bonds data by the ECI acting on the Supreme Court’s order, meanwhile, has opened a Pandora’s Box. Whatever data has been made public so far is so replete with opacity that a closer scrutiny is in order. According to an analysis conducted by the Project Electoral Bond, a number of companies have purchased electoral bonds following a probe from various Central agencies including the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the Income Tax Department (IT Dept), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and the Goods and Service Tax (GST) authorities. Among them are prominent companies featured in the top five donors list, such as Future Gaming and Hotel Services, Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd, and Yashoda Super Specialty Hospital.
A total of 43 newly established companies, founded in 2018 or later, have collectively purchased electoral bonds amounting more than Rs 384.5 crore. Among these, four companies founded in 2023 in Hyderabad, acquired bonds worth millions of rupees shortly after their establishment. Additionally, nine companies formed in 2020 and eleven companies set up in 2021 during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic managed to procure bonds amounting to nearly Rs 100 crore within just one or two years of their inception.
Upon examining the list of companies that bought electoral bonds, it has come to light that at least 19 of them were classified as ‘high risk’ by the Ministry of Finance for breaching regulations outlined under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). These companies collectively bought electoral bonds amounting to a staggering Rs 2,717 crore. Sixteen of these companies were based in Kolkata, with some even located in areas such as Lal Bazar, infamous for housing shell companies.
Since the release of the data, there has been a significant amount of public interest in the identities of bond purchasers, the amounts they purchased, and the dates of their purchases. This information has uncovered possible quid pro quo, as anticipated. However, voters are still unaware of the individuals who bought electoral bonds amounting more than Rs 4,000 crore before April 12, 2019.
In this regard, a plea was submitted in the Supreme Court on 17 March asking for transparency regarding the sale of electoral bonds during the period from March 1, 2018, to April 11, 2019. The plea argues that voters have the right to know where political parties are receiving their funding from since the inception of the now-scrapped electoral bonds scheme. The petition, filed by Citizen’s Rights Trust, reveals that a total of 9,159 bonds amounting to Rs 4,002 crore were sold during the specified time period, and this information should be made public. The petition calls for the SBI to provide details on the electoral bonds that were sold and redeemed between March 1, 2018, and April 11, 2019, which includes the alphanumeric number, purchase date, denomination, and the names of both donors and parties involved.
“It is submitted that once the entire Electoral Bond Scheme is held to be violative of Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution, the citizens are entitled to know the details of the donor and donee of the entire period from March 2018 onwards (the date when the scheme became functional). The data available on the platform of the Election Commission represents only 76 per cent of the total bonds and the voters are not aware of the details of the remaining 24 per cent of the Electoral Bonds,” the plea said.
Meanwhile, the ECI released a fresh set of data regarding electoral bonds that had previously been submitted in sealed envelopes to the Supreme Court. Political parties had filed data on electoral bonds in sealed covers as directed by the Supreme Court’s interim order, the poll panel said in a statement.
According to the data and not surprisingly, the BJP has received the highest amount of funds through these bonds, amounting to Rs 6,986.5 crore. This was followed by the Trinamool Congress with Rs 1,397 crore, the Congress with Rs 1,334 crore, and the Bharat Rashtra Samithi with Rs 1,322 crore.
Future Gaming, the top spender on electoral bonds, invested a whopping Rs 1,368 crore. Surprisingly, almost 37 per cent of this amount was directed towards the DMK. Other notable contributors to the DMK included Megha Engineering with Rs 105 crore, India Cements Rs 14 crore, and Sun TV with Rs 100 crore. It is worth noting that the DMK stands out as one of the few major regional parties that have chosen to disclose the identities of their donors. In contrast, parties like the BJP, Congress, TMC, and AAP have kept this information confidential, despite a Supreme Court order mandating the Election Commission to make these details public.
Now, it is incumbent upon the SBI and ECI to make the whole picture regarding the electoral bonds clear. This will enable the voter, who is going to polls four weeks from now, to exercise her right in an informed manner after knowing the whole truth.
And yes, while saying this, none should forget that almost all actual election expenses are made in cash and the known culprits, whose names have not figured anywhere, must have definitely donated much larger sums in hard cash which would never come to the surface.