New Delhi: The Election Commission of India published the data on electoral bonds on its website a day before the deadline. The data was published on the site as it was received from the State Bank of India on March 12. The SBI on Tuesday evening submitted the details of entities which purchased the now-scrapped electoral bonds and political parties which redeemed them. The Supreme Court gave the Election Commission time till 5pm on March 15 to publish these data on its site.
The Supreme Court had on February 15 scrapped the Centre’s electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous political funding, calling it “unconstitutional” and ordered disclosure by the EC of donors, the amount donated by them and recipients.
The SBI had sought time till June 30 for disclosure of the details. Its plea, however, was rejected by the apex court, and it asked the bank to submit all details to the Election Commission by the close of working hours on Tuesday.
“It may be recalled that in the said matter ECI has consistently and categorically weighed in favour of disclosure and transparency, a position reflected in the proceedings of the Hon’ble Supreme Court and noted in the order also,” ECI said as it published the data on the site.
The first part of the details contains 337 pages detailing the entities that bought electoral bonds and the date of purchase. The second part containing 426 pages provided the details of the political parties, dates and the amount. It cannot be known which company bought whose electoral bonds.
Donors to political parties through electoral bonds included Grasim Industries, Megha Engineering, Torrent Power, Bharti Airtel, DLF Commercial Developers, and Vedanta Ltd.
Apollo Tyres, Lakshmi Mittal, Edelweiss, PVR, Keventer, Sula Wine, Welspun, Sun Pharma among buyers of electoral bonds.
Recipients of funds through electoral bonds include BJP, Congress, AIADMK, BRS, Shiv Sena, TDP, YSR Congress, DMK, JDS, NCP, Trinamool Congress, JDU, RJD, AAP, SP.
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