Electoral Bond Data: As Election Commission makes data public, these are the biggest donors and recipients

Electoral Bonds data: After the State Bank of India (SBI) provided detailed data on electoral bond transactions to the Election Commission of India (ECI), the election body published it on its official website on Thursday, March 14, 2024. 

The data revealed that while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged as the leading political party to receive donations through electoral funds at Rs 5,271 crore, a little-known company, Future Gaming and Hotel Services, emerged as the biggest buyer of electoral bonds at Rs 1,350 crore.

The Indian National Congress (INC) and the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) emerged as the next two largest parties to get donations through electoral bonds.

Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited, Haldia Energy Limited, and Vedanta Ltd were also among the big donors.

The ECI released the electoral bond data list on the insistence of the Supreme Court, and after SBI provided the list on March 12, 

In this write-up, we take you through vital information about electoral bond data, including who emerged as the biggest buyer and which political party received the maximum funding. 

Electoral Bonds data facts

As many as 31 political parties, including the BJP, the INC, and the AITC, received donations worth more than 16,437 crore in six years.

Of this donation, political parties received as much as Rs 9,188 crore just in the form of electoral bonds.

About 55 per cent of donations were received through electoral bonds.

The BJP received donations of more than Rs 5,271 crore.

Of this donation, about 52 per cent was received through electoral bonds.

National parties received donations of Rs 1,783 crore.

The Congress is in second place in terms of donations received through bonds.

It got donations of more than Rs 952 crore through electoral bonds. Mamata Banerjee's party, AITC, is at number three.

It received more than Rs 767 crore in donations through electoral bonds.

Donations received from other sources

As per a November 2023 central government report, political parties received donations from other sources in 2004–05 and 2014–15.

Sixty nine per cent of the total income in 11 years came from 'unknown sources'.

According to the government, these unknown sources were the source of black money.

Who are the other donors?

According to the data, the donors include Lakshmi Niwas Mittal, ITC Limited, Bajaj Finance Ltd, Bharti Airtel Limited, Apollo Tyres Limited, SpiceJet Limited, JK Cement Ltd, DLF Commercial Developers Limited, Jindal Steel and Power Limited, Torrent Power Limited, Zydus Healthcare Limited, Cipla Limited, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories Ltd, Mankind Pharma Limited, Edelweiss Housing Finance Ltd, Finolex Cables Ltd, GHCL Ltd, Jindal Poly Films Limited, Piramal Capital, Grasim Industries Limited PR, and Housing Finance Limited, Piramal Enterprises Ltd, Muthoot Finance Limited, Pegasus Properties Private Limited.

Other donors were Avon Cycles Ltd, Qwik Supply Chain Private Limited, Haldia Energy Limited, Essel Mining and Industry Limited, and Western UP Power Transmission Company Limited. Keventer Food Parks Limited, BG Shirke Construction Technology Pvt Ltd, and Rungta Sons Pvt Ltd are also among the donors, according to the data.

What are electoral bonds?

Introduced in 2017, electoral bonds enabled individuals and corporate groups to donate unlimited amounts of money to any political party anonymously.

In February, the Supreme Court abolished the seven-year-old election funding system ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Donors purchase these bonds in fixed denominations from the State Bank of India (SBI) and hand them over to any political party, which could cash them using a bank account.

The bonds did not require the beneficiary political parties to disclose the name of the donor to anyone, not even the Election Commission of India (ECI).

(With inputs from agencies)