Electoral bonds data: Billionaire tycoons, lesser-known entities among buyers

From steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal to billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittals Airtel Anil Agarwals Vedanta ITC Mahindra and Mahindra and a lesserknown Future Gaming and Hotel Services were among the prominent buyers of the nowscrapped electoral bonds for making political donationsThe Election Commission put up on its website the data on electoral bonds on Thursday a day ahead of the Supreme Courtfixed deadlineFuture Gaming which was probed by the Enforcement Directorate in March 2022 bought electoral bonds worth over Rs 1350 crore under two different sets of companiesAmong the known corporates Agarwals Vedanta Ltd bought Rs 398 crore worth of bonds while Sunil Mittals three companies together purchased a total of Rs 246 crore worth of bondsSteel magnate Lakshmi Niwas Mittal bought Rs 35 crore worth of bonds in his individual capacity Hyderabadbased Megha Engineering which has bagged contracts of several large infrastructure projects bought bonds worth Rs 966 croreWhile most of the bonds have been issued in the name of political parties the donations made to the Congress and the Samajwadi Party were made in the name of President All India Congress Committee and Adyaksha Samajwadi PartyFollowing a Supreme Court directive the State Bank of India which was the authorised seller of electoral bonds had shared the data with the poll panel on March 12The top court had given the Election Commission time till 5 pm of March 15 to upload the data on its websiteThe EC has put the details on Disclosure of Electoral Bonds Submitted by SBI in two parts one listing the buyers and the other listing the beneficiary partiesIn an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court the State Bank of India SBI said a total of 22217 electoral bonds of varying denominations were purchased by donors between April 1 2019 and February 15 this year out of which 22030 were redeemed by political partiesAccording to the data uploaded by the poll panel the buyers of electoral bonds included Spicejet IndiGo Grasim Industries Megha Engineering PiramalEnterprises Torrent Power Bharti Airtel DLF Commercial Developers Vedanta Ltd Apollo Tyres Edelweiss PVR Keventer Sula Wines Welspun Sun Pharma Vardhman Textiles Jindal Group Phillips Carbon Black Limited CEAT tyres Dr Reddys Laboratories ITC Kaypee Enterprises Cipla and Ultratech CementThe parties that redeemed electoral bonds include the BJP Congress AIADMK BRS Shiv Sena TDP YSR Congress DMK JDS NCP Trinamool Congress JDU RJD AAP the Samajwadi Party Jammu and Kashmir National Conference BJD Goa Forward Party Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party Sikkim Krantikari Morcha JMM Sikkim Democratic Front and the Jana Sena PartyIn a landmark verdict delivered on February 15 a fivejudge Constitution bench had scrapped the Centres electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous political funding calling it unconstitutional and ordered disclosure by the EC of donors the amount donated by them and the recipientsBesides Lakshmi Niwas Mittal individuals who donated through electoral bonds included Kiran Mazumdar Shaw Varun Gupta B K Goenka Jainendra Shah and one person going by only first name of MonikaGhaziabadbased Yashoda Super Speciality Hospital purchased 162 bonds mostly of Rs 1 crore eachBajaj Auto bought bonds worth Rs 18 crore Bajaj Finance Rs 20 crore three IndiGo firms Rs 36 crore Spicejet Rs 65 lakh and Rahul Bhatia of IndiGo bought bonds worth Rs 20 croreMumbaibased Qwik Supply Chain Pvt Ltd bought bonds worth Rs 410 crore and Haldia Energy Rs 377 croreAccording to a report by the Association of Democratic Reforms ADR a total of 28030 electoral bonds worth Rs 16518 crore have been sold from March 2018 to January 2024The BJP has received the highest contributions through the electoral bonds amounting to Rs 6566 crore or 5477 per cent followed by the Congress with Rs 1123 crore or 937 per cent Trinamool Congress Rs 1092 crore or 911 per cent it had revealed