advertisement
A whopping Rs 1,716 crores’ worth of electoral bonds were sold in just two months, January and March 2019, by the State Bank of India. It seems that now the maximum amount of political donation is being made through electoral bonds, which the Election Commission of India (EC) itself termed a ‘retrograde step’.
In an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court on 25 March, the EC has said that electoral bonds will have serious repercussions on transparency in political funding.
In an RTI reply to Vihar Durve, accessed by The Quint, the SBI has said that in just two months in 2019, electoral bonds worth Rs 1716,05,14,000 were sold in 14 cities.
Whereas, over Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 1056,73,42,000 crore) worth of bonds were sold in 2018 (March, April, May, July, October and November).
Indeed, in an election year, one can expect political donations of this amount. But the worrisome part is that a huge amount of these donations are coming through the ‘anonymous and non-transparent’ electoral bonds.
In fact, the Modi government’s claims that electoral bonds will keep the donors anonymous is also misleading. A series of articles by The Quint has exposed that the electoral bonds contain unique alphanumeric hidden numbers that are invisible to the naked eye, but visible under ultra-violet light. This unique number helps the Modi government to secretly track those making donations through bonds, and find out who they have donated to.
The 2017-18 annual audit report submitted by the BJP to the EC, revealed that the party received 95% of the total electoral bonds sold in March 2018. The RTI revealed that Rs 222 crores worth of electoral bonds were purchased in March 2018, of which BJP received Rs 210 crores’ worth.
The electoral bonds data has also indicated that there is no demand for bonds of lower denominations like Rs 10 lakh or Rs 10,000. Though there is no concrete information on the type of purchasers, since SBI has refused to share this information, it is highly likely that most of the purchasers are corporates and the super-rich.
In an affidavit filed in the SC on the petition challenging the electoral bonds scheme, the EC said,
The Modi government has claimed that electoral bonds were introduced to bring in transparency. But the former chief election commissioner OP Rawat’s statement flies in the face of what the government has claimed.
The former chief election commissioner SY Qureshi has said that electoral bonds scheme suits the ruling party to cover up quid pro quo between the government and the corporate sector.
The EC has sharply criticised the introduction of the electoral bonds scheme, calling it a “retrograde step” that opens up the possibility of setting up shell companies through which black money can be used for political funding.
The SC is yet to decide on the petition seeking a stay on the sale of electoral bonds. The matter is listed for 2 April 2019.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)
Published: 01 Apr 2019,06:45 PM IST