On Thursday, the Election Commission of India uploaded electoral bond data received from SBI to its website. The data became public after the SBI submitted the bond data to the poll body on Tuesday.
Piramal Enterprises Ltd., Muthoot Finance Limited, Pegasus Properties Private Limited, Finolex Cables Ltd., Lakshmi Niwas Mittal, Edelweiss Housing Finance Ltd., GHCL Ltd., Jindal Poly Films Limited, ITC Limited, Vedanta Limited, and Bharti Airtel Limited were among the major donors to political parties through electoral bonds.
The name of Western UP Power Transmission Company Ltd is also on the list of donors. The poll body made the data on electoral bonds available on its website on Thursday, a day before the Supreme Court’s deadline.
Future Gaming, which was investigated by the Enforcement Directorate in March 2022, purchased sbi electoral bond data worth more than Rs 1,350 crore through two separate companies, according to The Ultimate News.
Among the top corporates, Agarwal’s Vedanta Ltd purchased Rs 398 crore in bonds, while Sunil Mittal’s three companies purchased a total of Rs 246 crore in bonds. Lakshmi Niwas Mittal purchased bonds worth Rs 35 crore in his personal capacity. Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering, which has won contracts for several large infrastructure projects, purchased bonds worth Rs 966 crore.
Spicejet, IndiGo, Grasim Industries, Megha Engineering, Piramal Enterprises, Torrent Power, Bharti Airtel, DLF Commercial Developers, Vedanta Ltd., Apollo Tyres, Edelweiss, PVR, Keventer, Sula Wines, Welspun, Sun Pharma, Vardhman Textiles, Jindal Group, Phillips Carbon Black Limited, CEAT Tyres, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, ITC, Kaypee Enterprises, Cipla, and Ultratech Cement, Qwik Suppl
On February 15, a five-judge Constitution bench declared the Centre’s electoral bonds scheme, which allowed anonymous political funding, “unconstitutional” and ordered the EC to disclose donors, amounts donated, and recipients.
Individuals who donated through sbi electoral bond data included Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Varun Gupta, B K Goenka, Jainendra Shah, and one person known only by her first name, Monika. Ghaziabad-based Yashoda Super Speciality Hospital purchased 162 bonds, the majority of which were worth Rs 1 crore each.
According to The Ultimate News, Bajaj Auto paid Rs 18 crore, Bajaj Finance paid Rs 20 crore, three IndiGo firms paid Rs 36 crore, Spicejet paid Rs 65 lakh, and IndiGo CEO Rahul Bhatia paid Rs 20 crore for bonds. Qwik Supply Chain Pvt Ltd, based in Mumbai, purchased Rs 410 crore in bonds, while Haldia Energy paid Rs 377 crore.
According to a report by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), a total of 28,030 electoral bonds worth Rs 16,518 crore were sold since March 2018 to January 2024.