Election Commission Releases Electoral Bonds Data On Portal; Check Details

Following the Supreme Court's ruling, the Election Commission of India (ECI) posted the electoral bonds data that the State Bank of India (SBI) released on its website on Thursday ( March 14, 2024). The deadline to submit the same was March 15, 2024. 

The apex court ordered the body to post the information by 5 p.m. before March 15 on its official website.

According to the election panel's data, starting April 12, 2019, electoral bonds with denominations ranging from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1 crore have been purchased. Additionally, the data displays purchases made by both individuals and businesses.

In accordance with the Supreme Court's directive to provide the information, the SBI on Tuesday night provided the electoral body with the names and contact information of the organizations that had bought the now-canceled electoral bonds as well as the political parties that had obtained them

The EC has put the details on 'Disclosure of Electoral Bonds submitted by SBI' in two parts.

Major corporate donors

As per the data uploaded by the poll panel, the buyers of electoral bonds include Grasim Industries, Megha Engineering, Piramal Enterprises, Torrent Power, Bharti Airtel, DLF Commercial Developers, Vedanta Ltd., Apollo Tyres, Lakshmi Mittal, Edelweiss, PVR, Keventer, Sula Wine, Welspun, and Sun Pharma.

The political parties that redeemed electoral bonds include the BJP, Congress, AIADMK, BRS, Shiv Sena, TDP, YSR Congress, DMK, JDS, NCP, Trinamool Congress, JDU, RJD, AAP, and the Samajwadi Party, according to the data.

In a landmark verdict delivered on February 15, a five-judge Constitution bench had scrapped the Centre's electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous political funding and called it "unconstitutional".