Data released by India’s elections watchdog revealed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was the largest beneficiary of political donations through electoral bonds over the past five years, just weeks before national polls.
According to Bloomberg calculations based on the data, the BJP received a staggering 60.61 billion rupees ($732 million) through electoral bonds, significantly surpassing the main opposition Congress party’s 14.22 billion rupees.
Future Gaming and Hotel Services Pvt., an obscure firm, topped the list of donors using electoral bonds with contributions of 13.68 billion rupees. Notable contributors included leading Indian companies like Vedanta Ltd., Bharti Airtel Ltd., ITC Ltd., Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., and Cipla. However, flagship companies of India’s wealthiest billionaires, Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, were notably absent from the list.
The data release by the Election Commission of India follows a Supreme Court order last month that struck down the opaque political funding tool championed by Modi’s government.
State Bank of India, the nation’s top lender responsible for issuing electoral bonds, was directed by the court to provide details to the Election Commission by March 12, under the threat of possible contempt charges. The data, spanning hundreds of pages, provides insight into the controversial electoral bond system.
Introduced by the BJP-led government in 2018 under the guise of reducing black money in Indian elections, electoral bonds faced criticism and were ultimately ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court for being arbitrary and contrary to India’s constitutional principles.