Electoral bond data: This is how much the BJP, Congress and TMC received
bjp flag, lok sabha (PTI photo)
After weeks of back-and-forth between the Supreme Court (SC) and the State Bank of India (SBI), the public sector lender announced the full details of the electoral bond program on March 21. The information disclosed included the repayment data of political parties. It contained the serial numbers, collection dates, party names, the last four digits of account numbers, prefixes, bond numbers, denominations and payment branch codes.
As per the data released, the total amount collected through the electoral bonds was Rs 12,145.87 crore. While the BJP’s donor list had nine companies that gave more than Rs 100 crore to the party, the Congress and the Trinamool Congress had just two each, and two regional parties, BRS and DMK, had one donor each.
Which companies have donated to the BJP through electoral bonds?
According to SBI data, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was the biggest beneficiary of the electoral bond scheme, which the ruling party had introduced in 2019. The richest national party received donations worth around Rs 6,000 crore from various companies, mainly Megha Engineering, Qwik Supply Chain, Vedanta and Bharti Airtel, among others.
The ruling party received donations of over Rs 100 crore from 9 companies, the highest on the list. While Megha Engineering, a Hyderabad-based infrastructure company, donated Rs 519 crore, Qwik Supply was the second highest donor with Rs 375 crore. Vedanta, Bharti Airtel and Madanlal Ltd gave Rs 226 crore, Rs 183 crore and Rs 175.5 crore each.
Other major contributors included Birla Carbon India (Rs 105 crore) and lottery firm Future Gaming and Hotel Services (Rs 100 crore).
According to reports, Madanlal Ltd, MKJ Enterprises and Keventers Food Park share the same address in Kolkata. Madanlal Ltd states on its official website that it is part of the companies MKJ and Keventers Group, both of which have made separate donations to the BJP and other parties.
How much did Congress benefit from the bonds?
The Indian National Congress fell behind the BJP by a considerable margin in reaping the benefits of the bond programme. The national party received a total of Rs 1,351 crore. The party’s largest donor was Vedanta Ltd with Rs 125 crore, while Western UP Power Limited, a subsidiary of Megha Enterprise Group, gave Rs 110 crore. It is important to note that Megha Engineering was the largest contributor to the BJP.
The third number featured MKJ Enterprises with donations worth Rs 91.6 crore. The other notable donations were from Yashoda Super Specialty Hospital, Future Gaming and Avees Trading & Finance with donations worth Rs 64 crore, Rs 50 crore and Rs 53 crore.
How did Mamata Banerjee’s TMC fare?
The electoral bond program proved more beneficial to the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress than the INC. The party received Rs 1,592 crore through the poll bond donations.
Future Gaming was the largest donor to TMC, donating Rs 542 crore, the highest individual contribution to any party. At second place was Haldia Energy Limited, a flagship of RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, with donations worth Rs 281 crore. Apart from these, Dhariwal Infra (Rs 90 crore), MKJ Enterprises (Rs 45.9 crore) and Avees Trading & Finance (Rs 45.4 crore) were among other notable donors.
The Supreme Court quashed the Electoral Bonds scheme in February last year. SBI was the only bank allowed to sell and redeem the bonds, which were first issued in March 2018.
First print: March 22, 2024 | 5:21 PM IST