According to data filed with the Election Commission (EC), BJP received three-fourths of electoral bonds sold in 2019-20, while the Congress got just 9 per cent of the total bonds worth Rs 3,435.
According to a report by NDTV, BJP’s share of voluntary contributions through the electoral bonds route has gone up from 21 per cent in 2017-18 to 74 per cent in 2019-20. In absolute terms, the party’s income from bonds has gone up more than ten times during this period.
The party received Rs 210 crore from bonds out of the total Rs 989 crore it got as voluntary contributions in 2017-18 and Rs 2,555 crore out of Rs 3,427 crore it raised in 2019-20. The Congress, on the other hand, got Rs 383 crore through bonds in 2018-19 and in 2019-20, got Rs 318 crore through bonds, which is 68 per cent of the total Rs 469 crore that it got as voluntary donations.
That apart, in 2019-20, the Nationalist Congress Party collected Rs 29.25 crore through bonds, Trinamool Congress Rs 100.46 crore, DMK Rs 45 crore, Shiv Sena Rs 41 crore, Rashtriya Janata Dal Rs 2.5 crore, and the Aam Aadmi Party Rs 18 crore.
“While electoral bonds provide no details to the citizens, the said anonymity does not apply to the government of the day, which can always access the donor details by demanding the data from the State Bank of India (SBI). This implies that the only people in dark about the source of these donations are the taxpayers. It may also be noted that the printing of these bonds & SBI commission for facilitating the sale and purchase of the bonds is paid from the taxpayers’ money by the central government,” the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), which had moved the Supreme Court against electoral bonds, said in a recent statement.
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