Election Commission releases new data of funding received by political parties through electoral bonds
The Election Commission on Sunday made public fresh data on electoral bonds, which it had submitted in sealed covers to the Supreme Court and was later asked to put it in public domain.
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FollowThe Election Commission on Sunday released data received from political parties on electoral bonds, which it had given to the Supreme Court in sealed covers. These details are believed to be for the period before April 12, 2019. Electoral bond details after this date was made public by the EC last week.
According to the poll panel's announcement, political parties have submitted their Electoral Bond data under sealed cover, as required by the Supreme Court's temporary injunction of April 12, 2019.
In a statement, the Election Commission, said, “Data so received from political parties was deposited in the Supreme Court without opening sealed covers. In pursuance of the Supreme Court’s order dated March 15, 2024, the Registry of the Supreme Court has returned physical copies along with a digitized record of the same in a pen drive in sealed cover."
"The Election Commission of India has today uploaded the data received in the digitized form from the registry of the Supreme Court on electoral bonds on its website,” the poll body added.
As per the data, "Congress redeemed a total of Rs 1,334.35 crore through electoral bonds," informed the EC data. It went on to say that the BJP has cashed electoral bonds for a total of Rs 6,986.5 crore, with the biggest amount being received in 2019–20 being Rs 2,555 crore.
According to the report, the YSR Congress redeemed electoral bonds of Rs 442.8 crore, and the Biju Janta Dal (BJD) cashed bonds for Rs 944.5 crore. The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) has encashed Rs 181.35 crore in the interim.
The EC released the data a day after it announced the dates for the Lok Sabha elections to be held in seven phases from April 19 to June 1. The latest documents released by the EC only show raw data of the date of the bonds, denominations, number of bonds, issuing State Bank of India (SBI) branch, date of receipt, and date of credit. It does not disclose the unique numbers of the bonds.
Last Thursday, the EC had released the data on electoral bonds issued from April 12, 2019 to February 15, 2024, even as it approached the Supreme Court asking it to return the data on the preceding period so that it could also be made public.
While scrapping the 2018 poll bonds scheme, the Supreme Court had directed the SBI to give the ECI the data by March 6. The ECI was instructed to publish the data by March 13.
