Electoral bonds: BJP received more than Rs 6.5 thousand crore till last financial year
Data shows that various political parties have received contributions of over Rs 16,000 crore so far through electoral bonds, of which a major portion is expected to go to the BJP.
All political parties should unite According to data available with the Election Commission and the Association for Democratic Funds, the now-cancelled electoral bond scheme received more than Rs 12,000 crore since its launch in 2018 till the last financial year, of which the ruling BJP got about 55 per cent or Rs 6,565 crore. Got Rs. Correction (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 the partiesHowever, it is more than 90 per cent 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 replaced Congress As the richest party in the country since the last year of UPA-2. 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.
The BJP saw its money coming in through electoral bonds increase by Rs 1,033 crore in 2021-22, while that of the Congress fell by Rs 236 crore that year. Among other parties, TMC received Rs 325 crore through these bonds in the last financial year, while it was Rs 529 crore for BRS, Rs 185 crore for DMK, Rs 152 crore for BJD and Rs 34 crore for TDP. . Samajwadi Party’s electoral bond contribution became zero, while Shiromani Akali Dal’s contribution was also zero.
About half the funding in electoral bonds comes from corporates, while the rest comes from “other sources”.
The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down the electoral bond scheme for political funding, saying it violates the constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression as well as the right to information.
Electoral bond is a financial instrument for making donations to political parties and it works like a bearing instrument without the name of the buyer or payer, thus providing anonymity to the donor.
There is no upper limit on how many bonds an individual can purchase or donate, while these were available in denominations of Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore, the most popular being Was category.
These bonds, sold only through select branches of state-owned State Bank of India, must be encashed by political parties within 15 days, otherwise the funds are transferred to the PM National Relief Fund.
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