 "Electoral bonds worth Rs 970 crore sold ahead of upcoming Cognizant")
In the run-up to the May 10 Karnataka Assembly elections, the State Bank of India (SBI) sold electoral bonds for Rs 970.50 crore in April, nearly nine times the value of electoral bonds sold just ahead of the state's previous polls in 2018, an Indian Express report said.
The 26th tranche of sales under the Electoral Bond Scheme, 2018, saw the sale of 1,470 electoral bonds for Rs 970.50 crore between April 3 and April 12, according to the SBI's response to an RTI filing.
In April 2018, ahead of the previous Assembly elections in Karnataka, SBI sold 256 electoral bonds for Rs 114.90 crore in the second tranche of sales. The bank acknowledged this in its response to similar RTI requests on April 26, 2018 regarding the second tranche.
This time, sales at the SBI branch in Hyderabad were the highest, accounting for Rs 335.30 crore or 34 per cent of the total. Kolkata came in second with Rs 197.40 crore, followed by Mumbai with Rs 169.37 crore, Chennai with Rs 122 crore, and New Delhi with Rs 55.65 crore, said the report.
The SBI branch in New Delhi, where it is believed that national parties keep their bank accounts, received over 58 per cent of the entire amount of bonds sold (Rs 565.79 crore), it added.
Under the scheme, parties have to open dedicated bank accounts at designated SBI branches for receiving electoral bonds. As of the latest tranche of sales, 25 parties had opened such accounts, the RTI reply showed.
In 2018, the Mumbai branch generated the most revenue (Rs 51 crore), followed by Kolkata (Rs 40 crore), Bengaluru (Rs 12.90 crore), and New Delhi (Rs 10 crore).
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All but Rs 6,000 of the total bonds sold were cashed, and only in two branches - Rs 113.40 crore in New Delhi and Rs 1.50 crore in Bengaluru.
The SBI had only recently begun the scheme, and the bonds were only accessible in 13 branches as of April 2018, however they are now available in 29 branches.