Electoral Bonds: Here Is The List Of Top Donors
Electoral bonds worth Rs 12,155.51 crore were bought till Jan 11, 2024.
The Election Commission of India has released the data on electoral bonds on its website as received from the State Bank of India, complying with the stern order from the Supreme Court.
Lottery company Future Gaming and Hotel Services Private Limited has emerged as the biggest electoral bond donor, donating Rs 1,368 crore to Indian political parties.
As per the State Bank of India upload, now available on the election commission website, the Tamil Nadu-based lottery company tops the list of donors who've donated to various political parties from April 12, 2019 till Jan 11, 2024.
According to the data, 1,277 unique entities bought electoral bonds worth Rs 12,155.5 crore during the period.
Following Future Gaming, the list also includes Megha Engineering and Infrastructures, Qwik Supply Chain, Haldia Energy, Vedanta Limited—the multinational mining conglomerate, Essel Mining and Industries, Western Up Power Transmission Company, Keventer Foodpark Infrastructure and Madanlal—among its top 10 donors, according to electoral bond donor data released on Thursday.
Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Ltd. and group firm Western UP Power Transmission Co. Ltd. donated Rs 966 crore and Rs 220 crore, respectively.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra-based Qwik Supply Chain Private Limited, a warehousing, storage and transportation provider, was revealed to have donated Rs 410 crore.
Among the top donors are popular Indian conglomerates RP Sanjiv Goenka Group (Haldia Energy) and Aditya Birla Group (Essel Mining and Industries), in what appears to be a donor list topped by infrastructure, energy and mining enterprises.
To be sure, the data does not reveal which party the bonds were donated to. Of the two lists, one contains aggregated data on donors and their total donations, along with dates. The second list contains names of recipients who are political parties, dates and the value of bonds encashed.
Recipient political parties include Bharatiya Janata Party, Indian National Congress, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), Shiv Sena, Telugu Desam Party (TDP), and Yuvajana Sramika Rythu (YSR) Congress Party.
Last month, the top court struck down the electoral bond scheme in a unanimous ruling and called it unconstitutional. On Monday, the apex court rejected a plea by SBI to extend the March 6 deadline to release this data. A bench, led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, came down strongly on the bank for "willful disobedience" of orders and warned it of contempt proceedings if it failed to meet this deadline.
