2024-03-23 10:28:06
New Delhi: State Bank of India (SBI) has handed over the complete data related to Electoral Bond to the Election Commission. As per the order of the Supreme Court, SBI has made available all the information related to electoral bonds before the stipulated deadline i.e. 5 pm on March 21. After this, the Election Commission has also uploaded it on its official website. The alpha numeric number of the bond is also mentioned in it. This revealed how much election donation has been given by which company to which political party. New data has revealed that there are many companies which have donated crores of rupees to both BJP and Congress parties. Megha Group is one of the largest buyers of electoral bonds. Infrastructure company Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited (MEIL) is Hyderabad based. According to media reports, before the Maharashtra project, this company had purchased electoral bonds worth crores. Megha Engineering has given maximum donations to both BJP and Congress.
Crores of rupees given to big political parties
Megha Engineering & Infra and its subsidiary Western UP Power have given the maximum donations to both BJP and Congress. The company has donated Rs 664 crore to BJP and Rs 128 crore to Congress. The same company has also donated Rs 390 crore to KCR’s Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS). After this, Vedanta has given the second largest donation of Rs 104 crore to Congress. Whereas Future Gaming and Hotel has been the biggest donor of Trinamool. The parties have secretly received Rs 623 crore from the bonds. Of these, Rs 466.31 crore was received by BJP and Rs 70.77 crore was received by Congress. This amount is of April 2019. During this period, companies could make secret donations.
The data is for so many years
The latest list of electoral bonds contains data from April 2019 to February 2024. It does not contain data from March 2018 to April 1, 2019. During this period, 9159 electoral bonds worth Rs 4002 crore were purchased. A separate petition has been filed in the Supreme Court for this information.
Top 5 donating companies
Megha Engineering & Western UP has donated Rs 664 crore, Quick Supply Chain Rs 375 crore, Vedanta Rs 226.65 crore, Bharti Airtel Rs 183 crore, Madanlal Limited Rs 175.50 crore to BJP. Whereas, Megha Engineering and Western UP has donated Rs 128 crore to Congress, Vedanta has donated Rs 104 crore, MKJ has donated Rs 69.35 crore, Yashoda Hospital has donated Rs 64 crore and Avis Trading has donated Rs 53 crore.