Only Three Parties Had Opened an SBI Bank Account for Electoral Bonds Till March 31, 2018: RTI
New Delhi: Transparency activist Commodore (retd) Lokesh Batra has got RTI replies from the State Bank of India (SBI) to his queries on the number of political parties that had opened current accounts for electoral bonds early, starting from March 31, 2018, and also their eligibility for receiving the bonds.
The SBI has told Batra that only three political parties had opened accounts for encashing electoral bonds until March 31, 2018.
By March 31, 2019, the total number of parties that had opened accounts for encashing the bonds had increased to 14, the bank told Batra.
A little over a week later, on April 12, 2019, the number of political parties that had opened accounts had gone up to 18.
By March 31, 2020, there were 22 parties with accounts for and that were eligible to receive electoral bonds. This number remained the same till March 31, 2021.
It went up to 24 as of March 31, 2022 and further to 25 as of March 31, 2023.
As of March 21, 2024, the number remained the same at 25 political parties.
The SBI has not identified the parties concerned.
SBI (D&TB) Responses Dated 22-03-2024 on 02 Separate RTIs by The Wire on Scribd
The names of donors in the period before April 12, 2019 are still a secret, though the amounts encashed by political parties in this period are known.
For three of the top five groups or companies that bought electoral bonds, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) received the largest portion of their donations.
For the other two, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) received the most money.
In all, the BJP received half of the bonds purchased – an overwhelming Rs 8,251 crore.
The TMC, Congress, Bharat Rashtra Samithi and Biju Janata Dal are the other highest recipients of bonds but are very distant from the BJP.
Even while accounting for non-bond funding, the BJP secured about 65% of the money.
The Economist on March 21 has said that India may be heading towards having “the most expensive election” in the world ever, as “big Indian companies have been buying “electoral bonds”, mostly for Narendra Modi’s ruling party”.
Bloomberg had already called out the 2019 Indian general election as the world’s most expensive until then as well as being more costly than the United States’ in 2016.
Coming at a time when India’s per capita incomes are around $2,410 per annum, the lowest for countries at that level of GDP, along with facing historic levels of wealth and income inequalities, this bodes ill for India’s democratic credentials.
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