BJP will not be affected by electoral bond decision: Chandrashekhar Bawankule

Maharashtra BJP President Chandrashekhar Bawankule said on Thursday that Supreme Court’s decision to declare electoral bond scheme unconstitutional According to the PTI report, this will not affect his party as it “does not receive money through political power”.

Chandrashekhar Bawankule was replying to a question in which the opposition took a dig at the saffron party on the ruling party because of the election funding scheme brought by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

According to PTI, Chandrashekhar Bawankule told reporters, “The Supreme Court’s decision should be respected. It will have no impact on the BJP, because we do not acquire money through political power. We do not have such ‘sanskar’ ( Value) are not.” ,

He further said, “Those who raise huge money through political power and use this money to return to power will be affected.”

The state BJP chief was speaking to the media at the Legislature complex here after three party candidates filed nominations for the Rajya Sabha elections.
Since all parties have enough MLAs, the election will probably be uncontested, he said.

Meanwhile, according to PTI, data shows that various political parties have received contributions of over Rs 16,000 crore so far through electoral bonds, of which a major chunk is expected to go to the BJP.

According to data available with Elections, all political parties together received more than Rs 12,000 crore since the launch of the now-cancelled electoral bond scheme in 2018 till the last financial year, of which the ruling BJP received about 55 per cent or Rs 6,565 crore. Got crores of rupees. Commission and the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

While party-wise data for the current financial year 2023-24 will be available after the filing of the annual audit report for the year, the ADR put the collective amount of money generated through the sale of electoral bonds between March 2018 and January 2024 at Rs 16,518.11 crore. Told. ,

On average, these bonds are estimated to account for more than half of the total contributions received by parties, though it exceeds 90 percent in the case of some regional parties that are in power in their states.

In the case of BJP too, electoral bonds constitute more than half of its total income.

BJP Since the last year of UPA-2, Congress has been replaced as the richest party in the country. Its total income in the financial year 2013-14 was Rs 673.8 crore, while that of Congress was Rs 598 crore.

Since then, except for a few years in between, the BJP’s income has mostly been rising, while the Congress’s fortunes have seen a decline.

In 2018-19, the first full financial year after the introduction of electoral bonds, the BJP’s income more than doubled to Rs 2,410 crore (from Rs 1,027 crore), while the Congress’s income also rose sharply from Rs 199 crore to Rs 2,410 crore. It became Rs. 918 crores.

During the last financial year 2022-23, BJP’s total income was Rs 2,360 crore, of which about Rs 1,300 crore came through electoral bonds. In the same year, the total income of the Congress fell to Rs 452 crore, of which Rs 171 crore came through electoral bonds.

(With PTI inputs)