 "Donations")
The State Bank of India (SBI) informed the Supreme Court on Thursday that it has submitted the full list of electoral bonds data, including the unique alpha-numeric codes, to the Election Commission of India (ECI). As per the released data, the total amount encashed via electoral bonds was Rs 12,145.87 crore. Of this amount, the top 10 donors accounted for 33 per cent or Rs 4,548.30 crore.
Who were the top donors?
According to SBI data, lottery king Sebastian Martin’s firm Future Gaming and Hotel Services was the top donor to the scheme, purchasing bonds worth Rs 1,365 crore. Second-ranked Megha Engineering & Infrastructures donated Rs 966 crore, and Reliance-linked Qwik Supply Chain purchased bonds worth Rs 410 crore.
Vedanta Limited purchased bonds worth Rs 400 crore, and RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group’s flagship thermal plant company, Haldia Energy Ltd. purchased electoral bonds worth Rs 377 crore.
Mining firm Essel Mining purchased Rs 224.5 crore worth of electoral bonds, while Western UP Power Transmission Co. encashed bonds worth Rs 220 crore. Telecom giant Bharti Airtel came in the eighth position in terms of bond donations, with bonds worth Rs 198 crore. Kolkata-based FMCG group Keventers Foodpark Ltd. and steel products manufacturers MKJ Enterprises purchased electoral bonds worth Rs 195 and Rs 192.4 crore, respectively.
Which political parties received the most money from electoral bonds?
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was the biggest beneficiary of the electoral bonds scheme, with donations worth over Rs 6,000 crore in the last four years. Hyderabad-based infrastructure company Megha Engineering (MEIL) was the biggest donor to the BJP, with bonds purchased worth Rs 519 crore. Qwik Supply, an unlisted private company, donated Rs 375 crore, followed by Vedanta with Rs 226.7 crore and Bharti Airtel worth Rs 183 crore. The BJP also got substantial donations from companies like Madanlal Ltd. (Rs 175.5 crore), Keventers Foodpark Infra (Rs 144.5 crore), and DLF Commercial Developers (Rs 130 crore), among others.
Industrialist Lakshmi Mittal donated Rs 35 crore to the BJP in individual capacity, while several other individuals donated funds in the range of Rs 10-25 crore to the ruling party.
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The All India Trinamool Congress (TMC), was the second largest beneficiary of the scheme. The ruling party in West Bengal received its biggest donation from lottery gaming company Future Gaming and Hotel Services, who purchased the party’s bonds worth Rs 542 crore. Other major donors to the Mamata banerjee-led party included Haldia Energy (Rs 281 crore), Dhariwal Infra (Rs 90 crore), and MKJ Enterprises (Rs 45.9 crore), among others.
Meanwhile, the Congress party came third in terms of the benefits of the electoral bonds scheme. Vedanta was the biggest contributor to the party’s funds, with donations through bonds worth Rs 125 crore. Following the Vedanta group was Western UP Transmission Co with donations of Rs 110 crore, MKJ Enterprises (Rs 91.6 crore), Yashoda Super Speciality Hospital (Rs 64 crore), and Avees Trading & Finance Ltd (Rs 53 crore), among others. Future Gaming was also a significant donor to the Congress, with donations worth Rs 50 crore.
Megha Engineering (MEIL) was also the top donor for Telangana-based Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), with donations worth Rs 195 crore. Yashoda Super Speciality Hospital, a significant contributor to the Congress, also donated large sums to the BRS, totalling Rs 94 crore. Other significant donors to the BRS were Chennai Green Woods Pvt. Ltd. (Rs 50 crore), Dr Reddy’s Labs (Rs 32 crore), and Hetero Drugs Ltd. (Rs 30 crore), among others.
For the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin-led Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), the biggest contributor was the lottery firm Future Gaming, with donations worth Rs 503 crore. While Megha Engineering donated Rs 85 crore, other donations were in single digits for the party. Westwell Gases (Rs 8 crore), Askus Logistics (Rs 7 crore), and Fertileland Foods (Rs 5 crore) were other significant contributors.
How much did the companies donate to the parties?
The top donor company Future Gaming and Hotel Services’ largest donation was to the TMC, with donations worth Rs 542 crore, followed by Rs 503 crore to the DMK, Rs 154 crore to the Andhra-based YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), and Rs 100 crore to the BJP. It also purchased Congress party’s bonds worth Rs 50 crore.
Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd.’s largest contribution was to the BJP, with bonds encashed worth Rs 584 crore. It also donated to the BRS (Rs 195 crore), DMK (Rs 85 crore), YSRCP (Rs 37 crore), and Telugu Desam party (Rs 28 crore), among others.
Qwik Supply Chain kept a rather short list of donations, with a major chunk being donated to the BJP to the tune of Rs 375 crore. Its other two electoral bond purchases were of Shiv Sena (Rs 25 crore) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Maharashtra (Rs 10 crore).
Vedanta Ltd. also donated heavily to the BJP with bonds worth Rs 230.2 crore encashed. The company donated Rs 125 crore to the Congress and Rs 40 crore to Biju Janata Dal (BJD), among others.
Meanwhile, Haldia Energy Ltd. also had a short list of donations, mainly to the TMC (Rs 281 crore), followed by BJP (Rs 81 crore), and Congress (Rs 15 crore).
