New Delhi: The Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF), when in power in the Himalayan state in 2018, received Rs 50 lakh through electoral bonds from the Gujarat-based pharma company Alembic Pharmaceuticals Ltd, data uploaded by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Sunday (March 17) has shown.
The SDF furnished these details in a sealed cover to the ECI in May 2019.
Alembic Pharmaceuticals is based in Vadodara and deals with manufacturing generic medicines.
It first featured in a report in 2019 compiled by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) based on the ECI’s data on all donations above Rs 20,000 paid to the national parties during the FY 2017-2018.
The report by the electoral reforms watchdog NGO, which is also one of the primary petitioners of the ongoing case in the Supreme Court on electoral bonds, had revealed that Alembic Pharmaceuticals had paid Rs 6 crore to the BJP.
Since the BJP, even while being the biggest beneficiary of electoral bonds, had not disclosed the names of its electoral bond funders to the ECI in 2023, it is not yet clear if Alembic funded the ruling party via bonds even after FY 2017-18.
Though Alembic features multiple times in the disclosures on electoral bonds by the State Bank of India (SBI), it is yet to be established which party or parties ultimately received the funds.
In all, Alembic acquired electoral bonds worth Rs 1.20 crore between November 4, 2022 and July 5, 2023.
In 2018, soon after the Narendra Modi government came up with the electoral bonds scheme, the ruling SDF in Sikkim received Rs 50 lakh from Alembic on October 12. The party encashed five bonds worth Rs 10 lakh each that day.
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Who is Alembic, exactly?
Alembic runs one of its biggest generic medicine production units for the domestic market in Sikkim’s Rangpo area. According to a Business Standard report on November 2, 2014, Alembic was “set to commission its formulations plant in Sikkim” within that fiscal year.
The report had said, “Alembic would join a host of companies from Gujarat which have set up manufacturing facilities in this north eastern state to take advantage of tax benefits.”
“Companies like Intas Pharma, Torrent Pharma, Zydus Cadila, etc. already have facilities in Sikkim, where there is a ten-year relief (from the date of commencement of commercial production) on central excise as well as income tax exemption, incentives on substantial expansion of capacity as well as capital investment subsidy.”
The report continued: “Units that would start production within ten years of the notification which came in 2007, would be eligible for these benefits for the next 10 years”, adding that “Alembic had firmed up plans for setting up a unit in the taxi haven around 2008, and aims to commission the Rs.100 crore facility with a capacity of 2.5 billion tablets and capsules within the end of this fiscal (2014).”
The SDF was then a part of the BJP’s National Democratic Alliance.
Political observers in Gujarat point to how, in 2007, when Narendra Modi was Gujarat’s chief minister, he was the chief guest at the company’s centenary celebrations.
His then-deputy and now-Union home minister Amit Shah, in his affidavit filed in 2017 to contest the Rajya Sabha polls, had listed shares in Alembic Pharmaceuticals Ltd and its sister concern, Alembic Ltd, among several companies.
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In 2017, then-Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani had inaugurated the company’s anti-cancer drug unit in the state.
Data revealed by the SBI last week also shows that another regional party from Sikkim, the Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM), also received funding through electoral bonds.
The SKM, part of the NDA, came to power in 2019.
According to SBI data uploaded on the ECI’s website, the SKM revealed that it received Rs 36.5 crore through bonds that were encashed between October 13, 2022 and January 13, 2024.
According to data in the public domain at present, apart from these two political parties, no regional entity from the Northeast has received funds through electoral bonds.
