Lok Sabha Elections 2024: THIS is biggest electoral bond donor to Congress with Rs 125 crore contribution
The top donor to the Congress was Vedanta Limited which contributed Rs 125 crore via electoral bonds. The Megha Group’s Western UP Power Transmission Company Limited is the second highest donor which contributed Rs110 crore.
FollowAs the Election Commission released data on the missing component of Electoral Bonds -- unique numbers tying contributors to political parties that received contributions -- the firms that were the largest funders to the parties came to the forefront. Vedanta Ltd. was the highest contributor of electoral bonds to Congress, which was the third largest recipient of the electoral bonds program, followed by KCR's BRS, whose top donor was Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Ltd. (MEIL).
Vedanta Limited contributed Rs 125 crore out of the Rs 1422 crore that the Congress encashed in total. Others which contributed to Congress include Western UP Power Transmission Company limited which is a subsidiary of MEIL (Rs 110 crore), and MKJ Enterprises (Rs 91.6 crore).
With a total of 338 donors contributing, the Congress redeemed poll bonds worth Rs 1422 crore since April 2019. Other prominent donors to the Congress vial electoral bonds were Yashoda Hospitals (Rs 64 crore); Avees Trading Finance Pvt Limited (Rs 53 crore); ‘Lottery King’ Santiago Martin’s Future Gaming and Hotel Services (Rs 50 crore); Rithwik Projects Pvt Ltd (Rs 30 crore); SEPC Power (Rs 30 crore).
What about other parties?
The entire amount that KCR's BRS encashed was Rs 1214 crore; of that, Rs 195 crore came from MEIL, Rs 94 crore from Yashodha Super Speciality Hospital, and Rs 50 crore from Chennai Green Woods Pvt. Ltd.
Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress, which encashed Rs 1609.50 crore in electoral bonds, earned Rs 542 crore from Santiago Martin's Future Gaming and Hotel Services. Haldia Energy Limited was the second-largest donor to the party, with Rs 281 crore.
Naveen Patnaik's Biju Janata Dal encashed a total of Rs 775 crore, with Essel Mining contributing Rs 174.5 crore, Jindal Steel and Power Limited contributing Rs 100 crore, and Utkal Alumina International Limited contributing Rs 70 crore.
The SBI previously submitted two lists to the Election Commission, which were published on the internet on March 14. The information released includes the identities of contributors, bonds acquired, and bonds encashed by political parties.
