Kolkata: Billionaire industrialist Sanjiv Goenka, who heads the Kolkata-based RP Sanjiv Goenka Group, pumped in Rs 709 crore in political funding since May 2019 – Rs 609 crore through electoral bonds purchased by five firms part of his group of companies and Rs 100 crore through an electoral trust.
Of the five companies that spent through electoral bonds, Haldia Energy Ltd. purchased bonds worth Rs 377 crore, Dhariwal Infrastructure Limited bought bonds worth Rs 115 crore, Philips Carbon Black Ltd. spent Rs 80 crore, Crescent Power Ltd. spent Rs 34 crore and RPSG Ventures Ltd. spent Rs 3 crore on electoral bonds, data revealed by the Election Commission of India (ECI) at the Supreme Court’s instructions show.
Funding from one company came under two names – under Philips Carbon Black Ltd during 2019-21 and the abbreviated form, PCBL, from 2022. The company was renamed in January 2022.
These companies also contributed Rs 10 crore in 2019, Rs 65 crore in 2021 and Rs 25 crore in 2022 through the Prudent Electoral Trust, which gave the overwhelming majority of the funds it raised from corporates and individuals to the BJP, data made public by the ECI shows.
With this, he has emerged as among the top political funders in the country.
The difference between trusts and bonds is that the payments made to the trust are required to be declared and the information becomes public, whereas the bonds were meant to remain secret until the Supreme Court in February scrapped the scheme.
Sanjiv Goenka is one of Kolkata’s wealthiest persons, and his group has business footprints in power, consumer and retail, carbon black, IT-enabled services, media and entertainment, sports, and education sectors. His CESC Ltd supplies power to Kolkata, the biggest city in eastern India, while he also owns the Indian Premiere League (IPL) cricket team Lucknow Super Giants and the Indian Super League (ISL) football club Mohun Bagan Super Giants.
The group, just like several other political donors through electoral bonds, has been facing probes by central investigative agencies like the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI). Notably, a Rs 40 crore purchase of electoral bonds came a month after the CBI started an investigation.
The biggest spending by Goenka’s companies happened during March-April 2021, the time of the high-stakes West Bengal assembly election. Around the same time, elections happened in south India’s Kerala and Tamil Nadu and northeast India’s Assam.
In March 2021, the companies gave Rs 55 crore to the Prudent Electoral Trust. Haldia Energy India Ltd gave Rs 25 crore on March 15, Phillips Carbon Black gave Rs 20 crore on March 16, Crescent Power Limited gave Rs 5 crore on March 19 and Dhariwal Infrastructure gave Rs 5 crore on March 25.
Of the total Rs 245.72 crore the Trust raised from corporates and individuals during 2020-21, a whopping Rs 209 crore went to the BJP, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), the key petitioner in the Supreme Court case against the electoral bonds scheme, showed in 2022. Goenka’s companies accounted for 22.4% of what the Trust raised.
Apart from the Rs 55 crore to the Trust, the group purchased bonds worth Rs 67 crore – Haldia bought bonds worth Rs 20 crore on April 6 and Rs 15 crore on April 8, Philips spent Rs 20 crore on April 3 and Rs 10 crore on April 8, and Crescent spent Rs 2 crore on April 6, 2021.
Therefore, the group cumulatively spent Rs 122 crore in political funding during the assembly election months of March-April 2021.
Notably, two Sanjiv Goenka-led firms were flagged by the Comptroller and Auditor General, the country’s top auditor, for rigging coal auctions.
After the 2019 Lok Sabha election blow, the 2021 election was almost a do-or-die battle for West Bengal’s ruling party, Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC). The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had high hopes in West Bengal and Assam and was also pushing hard to increase its footprints in the southern states.
While it was the BJP that benefited from the Goenka group’s funding through electoral trusts, it remains to be seen who benefitted from the companies’ spending through electoral bonds, for which one would have to wait for the serial numbers of bond purchaser and recipient to be made public by the ECI and the State Bank of India (SBI).
The group claims to have a $6 billion asset base and $4 billion revenue, and describes itself as “one of India’s fastest growing conglomerates with a significant global presence”. Though based in Bengal, the group has a growing interest in states like Rajasthan and Gujarat.
Their renewables business includes 156MW of wind power plants in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat and 27MW of solar power plants in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. In January 2024, the group’s CESC Projects secured the contract of a 500 MT Green Hydrogen Plant Contract, given by the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), a public sector enterprise.
Earlier this year, it was reported that the company was looking to acquire over 50,000 acres of land in Rajasthan and Gujarat to fuel its 3 GW green energy dream with solar power, beside planning to expand operations in India’s northeastern states.
Also read: Top Five Political Parties Saw Electoral Bonds Fortunes Turning With Election Wins and Losses
The March-April 2021 funding was a big leap in the RP Sanjiv Goenka group’s political funding pattern, at least through formal channels.
They started their funding activities on May 7, 2019, amidst the Lok Sabha elections, with Rs 20 crore from Haldia and Philips in electoral bonds and Rs 10 crore from Haldia Energy to the Prudent Electoral Trust on May 13, 2019.
Thereafter, the group donated Rs 1 crore in October 2019, Rs 6 crore on January 18, 2020, and Rs 15 crore on October 19, 2020, through electoral bonds.
During 2017-18 the company was facing a probe by the ED, which first raided the group’s music venture Saregama’s premises both in Mumbai and Kolkata in November 2017.
After the March-April 2021 funding, the big chunks came in October 2022, October 2023 and January 2024.
The timings are interesting. In September 2022, the CBI started an investigation against the company on the charge of involvement in the allocations of coal blocks in the past. October 2022 saw spending of Rs 40 crore – Rs 15 crore from Crescent, and Rs 25 crore from Dhariwal.
October 2023 was another Rs 50 crore month – Rs 25 crore from Haldia Energies, Rs 10 crore from PCBL and Rs 15 crore from Dhariwal Infrastructure. It was also the month before elections in five states of India – Telangana, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram. The TMC, West Bengal’s ruling party, did not have any interest in these elections, but the BJP and the Congress did.
In 2023, Rs 15 crore was spent through bonds in April, July and October each from Dhariwal Infrastructure and Rs 25 crore in April and Rs 10 crore in October from PCBL. Then, in January 2024, Haldia Energy spent Rs 45 crore on buying electoral bonds. The elections were again around the corner.
On March 17 last year, Sanjiv Goenka said at the India Today Conclave that “Modi ji had taught the world to respect India”. “When the world around us is crumbling, India is actually standing up and doing well. A few years ago, when you went outside, nobody gave Indians any respect. Today, when you go outside and say ‘I am from India’, you are given respect. I think Modi ji has taught the world to respect India,” he said.
Note: This article was updated on March 20, 2024 to include electoral bonds purchased by ‘PCBL’ in addition to those marked ‘Philips Carbon Black Ltd’.
