Courtesy Frontline The Hindu

Disclosure of massive donations, heavily favouring BJP, has triggered a debate on the relevance of transparency, fairness, and honesty in politics.

On March 14, the Election Commission of India (ECI) published details of crores of rupees worth of political donations, confirming the immense financial advantage of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) weeks out from the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha election.

In an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court, the State Bank of India (SBI) stated that a total of 22,217 electoral bonds of varying denominations were purchased by donors between April 1, 2019, and February 15, 2024, out of which 22,030 bonds worth Rs.12,769.40 crore were redeemed by political parties.

The SBI, the nation’s top lender that was in charge of the electoral bond issuance system, was ordered by the court to furnish the details of the electoral bonds to the ECI by March 12, or possibly face contempt charges. 

Consequently, the top court had given the ECI time till 5 pm of March 15 to upload the data on its website, and the data released by the poll panel runs into hundreds of pages. The ECI released the details on Disclosure of Electoral Bonds Submitted by SBI” in two parts—one listing the buyers and the other listing the beneficiary parties—on its website a day before the court-mandated deadline.

Electoral bonds have been a key method of political funding, allowing donors to give anonymously through certificates purchased from the SBI. But on February 15, a five-judge Constitution Bench had scrapped the Centre’s electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous political funding, calling it unconstitutional”, saying it violated the right of voters to know who was financing parties. The court also struck down the amendments made to the Income Tax Act and the Representation of the People Act that made the donations anonymous.

Donors and beneficiaries

Data from March 14 showed that the BJP was far and away the single biggest recipient from April 2019 to January this year. The BJP had received slightly less than 48 per cent of all election bonds cashed by parties up to March 2023, amounting to around Rs.6,060 crore. The second biggest beneficiary was the Trinamool Congress, which received Rs.1,609.50 crore (12.6 per cent). The Congress, India’s main opposition party, had by contrast received around Rs.1,421 crore (11 per cent). 

The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) received Rs.1,214 crore, while the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) got Rs.775 crore, followed by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) at Rs.639 crore. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) got only Rs.66 crore and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) Rs.6.05 crore. The Communist parties were a notable absence from the list of beneficiaries.

As ECI reveals electoral bonds data, BJP tops beneficiary list; biggest donor is little-known Future Gaming – Frontline (thehindu.com)