ECI uploads more data on bonds till November 2023

The documents contain details of the number and value of electoral bonds that parties redeemed between March 1, 2018 and November 20, 2023

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Sunday uploaded all electoral bond-related documents that it received from political parties in 2019 and November 2023 in sealed covers, which it had subsequently submitted to the Supreme Court.

The Election Commission of India (PTI)

The documents contain details of the number and value of electoral bonds that parties redeemed between March 1, 2018 and November 20, 2023. On March 14, 2024, the poll body had uploaded data it received from the State Bank of India (SBI) for the bonds bought and redeemed between April 12, 2019 and February 15, 2024.

The documents unsealed and uploaded on Sunday showed that political parties knew the identities of the people and entities that donated funds to them, belying previous claims that the electoral bond scheme would ensure the donors’ identity remained hidden from the beneficiaries.

Of the parties that submitted details to the poll body between May and July 2019, to comply with the Supreme Court’s interim order dated April 12, 2019, eight revealed names of their donors. These were the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Janata Dal (Secular), Janata Dal (United), Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Sikkim Democratic Fund and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). The Congress’s head office did not reveal names of donors but its Goa unit said it received ₹30 lakh from VM Salgaocar and Brother Pvt Ltd, a mining company, in April 2019.

In November 2023, while complying with the Supreme Court’s order dated November 2, 2023, the number of such parties dwindled to six. The AIADMK, JD(S), and SDF gave details of donors again and the JD(S) was the only party to receive donations through bonds after its previous submission. Three other parties — Jammu & Kashmir National Conference, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party — gave details of their donors in 2023 though they had not made any submissions in 2019.

Of the ₹656.5 crore that Tamil Nadu’s ruling party DMK received between April 2019 and October 2023, ₹509 crore, or 77.5%, was donated by Future Gaming and Hotel Services Pvt Ltd, run by the Coimbatore-based Santiago Martin. Between April 12, 2019 and February 2024, the lottery firm bought bonds worth ₹1,368 crore, of which 37.2% was donated to the DMK.

In its submission to the poll body dated November 14, 2023, the DMK prefaced the details of the donors and wrote, “The Scheme also does not require the details of the donor to be furnished to the donee. Under these circumstances the donors did not strictly adhere to the requirement of furnishing their details whenever they handed over the electoral bonds to us. Be that as it may, following the direction of Hon’ble Supreme Court, we contacted our donors and we were able to collect the details from them.”

The MGP got bonds worth ₹35 lakh from VM Salgaocar and Brother, and another ₹20 lakh from VS Dempo and Company Pvt Ltd, another mining and steel company in January 2022. In 2009, Vedanta-controlled Sesa Goa bought Dempo’s mining operations.

Between April 12, 2019 and February 15, 2024, VM Salgaocar and Brother bought bonds worth ₹1.5 crore while an associated company, VM Salgaocar Corporation Private Limited bought bonds worth ₹4.45 crore. In the same duration, the chairperson of the Dempo Group, Srinivas Vasudev Dempo bought bonds worth ₹1.25 crore and three entities linked to Dempo — Dempo Industries Private Limited, Vasudeva Dempo Family Private Trust, and Dempo Private Limited Navhind Papers and Publications (which published The Navhind Times in Goa) — bought bonds worth ₹25 lakh.

Telangana-based Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited, which bought bonds worth ₹966 crore (without including bonds bought by its wholly owned subsidiaries) between April 12, 2019 and February 2024, of which it donated ₹105 crore or 10.9% to DMK. It also donated ₹50 crore to JD(S) in March 2019 and April 2023.

Most parties claimed in their submissions they had no information about the donors. Some others suggested they had the information but could not share it as their donors wished to remain anonymous.

In its submission dated May 27, 2019, the All India Trinamool Congress, while claiming that it did not have the details of its donors, wrote, “[M]ost of these bonds were sent to our office and dropped in the drop box or sent through messengers from various persons who wished to support our party, many of whom prefer to remain anonymous. Thus we are not in possession of the names and other details of the buyers.”

The Samajwadi Party, too, in its May 30, 3019 submission gave details of most donors, but for 10 ₹1 crore bonds, it submitted that it had received them by post with no name.

The Nationalist Congress Party, in its submission dated May 29, 2019 gave details of the donors, but said, “We are unable to furnish detailed particulars of donors against each bond as we neither maintained complete details of the same nor issued any receipts against the bonds received as initially we were not expected to maintain any details of electoral bearer bonds... Wherever possible, we have indicated the name of the person through whom bonds were received by the party.”

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has emerged as the biggest recipient of funds under the scheme and has accounted for the redemption of 50% of the value of all bonds redeemed, refused to give details of its donors in both the 2019 and 2023 submissions. In its July 6, 2019 submission, it said that under the Income Tax Act, 1961, political parties have been exempted from the need to maintain the details of donations received through electoral bonds. It reiterated, “It is duly submitted that the Electoral Bonds were introduced with the aim of bringing only accounted for funds in political funding while protecting the donors from any consequences, therefrom.”

To be sure, in a letter dated May 26, 2017, the then director of expenditure at the poll body, Vikram Batra had written to the secretary of the legislative department in the ministry of law and justice, expressing misgivings about the amendments to the IT Act through which the scheme was enabled.

“I am directed to draw your attention to the Finance Act, 2017, which has introduced certain amendments in the Income Tax Act, the Representation of the People Act 1951 and the Companies Act, 2013 and will have serious impact on Transparency aspect of political finance/funding of political parties,” he had written.

The new documents showed that in at least one case, an electoral trust donated to a political party. India’s largest electoral trust, the Prudent Electoral Trust, donated ten ₹10 lakh bonds for a total of ₹1 crore to the Rashtriya Janata Dal in April 2019. Electoral trusts are mandated to report who contributes to them and which political parties the trust contributes to, but they do not specify which donor’s donation was used as a contribution for which party. News agency Reuters recently identified 18 transactions between 2019 and 2022 in which eight corporate groups made large donations to the trust. Within days, Prudent issued cheques for the same amounts to the BJP.

The Goa Forward Party, in its May 2019 submission about electoral bonds, said it received a cheque of ₹50 lakh from Prudent Electoral Trust in its HDFC Bank account. To be sure, electoral bonds can be encashed by political parties only in their special accounts in the State Bank of India.