New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government printed 8,350 electoral bonds of Rs 1 crore each in 2024 alone, after the Supreme Court had already reserved its verdict on the constitutionality of the scheme in November 2023.
The information was revealed in State Bank of India’s (SBI’s) response to transparency activist Commodore Lokesh Batra’s Right to Information (RTI) query.
The bonds worth Rs 8,350 crores printed this year are more than what the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has amassed through the scheme since its inception.
According to the data published by the Election Commission, BJP has received Rs 8,251.8 crores in electoral bonds since 2018. The total value of bonds sold in this period is Rs 16,518 crore. This means the BJP redeemed about 50% of all bonds sold.
An earlier RTI filed by Batra had established that the taxpayer, not the donors or political parties, is footing the bill of printing and managing electoral bonds.
SBI, the bank authorised to issue electoral bonds, had charged Rs 13.50 crore to the government towards its “commission, printing and other expenses for managing and operating the Electoral Bonds Scheme,” between 2018-2023, the RTI response had revealed.
The cost of printing and managing the additional 8,350 bonds this year is not yet known.
“It appears that the government was confident that the Supreme Court would maintain the status quo. That was why it went ahead with printing more bonds of Rs 1 crore,” Batra told The Wire.
The Supreme Court on February 15 had struck down the electoral bonds scheme. While calling it unconstitutional and in violation of the voters’ right to this information, the court had directed the SBI to furnish the details of the bonds to the EC.
