New Delhi: In order to allow the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to encash expired electoral bonds worth Rs 10 crore, the Union government broke the official rules on the eve of 2018 Karnataka assembly elections, as per a report by The Reporters’ Collective.
According to the new disclosures by the Election Commission of India (ECI), the finance ministry headed by late Arun Jaitely forced the State Bank of India (SBI) to accept electoral bonds of Rs 10 crore after members of the BJP visited the bank to encash expired electoral bonds.
In a report published earlier in 2019, The Reporters’ Collective had mentioned that the SBI had allowed an unknown political party to encash electoral bonds worth Rs 10 crore even though it came two days after the legally mandated 15-day period to encash bonds had ended. In 2019, The Reporters’ Collective had mentioned in the report that it was not known which political party had gained from the ministry’s direction to the SBI.
Now, the BJP’s own disclosures made public by the ECI highlights that the finance ministry interpreted rules differently and issued an illegal order to the government-owned bank to allow the saffron party to encash Rs 10 crore worth of expired bonds.
Also read: Why a Court-Monitored Probe on Quid Pro Quo Involving Electoral Bonds Is Needed
Notably, these bonds were bought during an “extra” window for the sale of electoral bonds which the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) had asked for – even though no such extra window is allowed for in the regulations notified by the Centre.
As per The Reporter’s Collective, this was also a breach of the electoral bonds order as the rules notified in January 2018 had four 10-day windows in January, April, July and October. This rule was broken and an extra “special” 10-day window for bond sale before the Karnataka elections was allowed. Similarly, a special 10-day window was opened in December 2022 before the Gujarat state elections as well.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been the largest beneficiary of the opaque funding tool. The party has received Rs 8,251.8 crore through the scheme, out of the total bonds sold worth about Rs 16,518 crore. This means the BJP redeemed just short of 50% of all bonds sold.
The party coming in second was the Congress – but far, far behind, with Rs 1,952 crore worth of bonds redeemed. The Trinamool Congress was a close third at Rs 1,705 crore.
