Electoral bonds worth over Rs 16K cr sold so far; BJP got in excess of Rs 6.5K cr till last fiscal

Electoral bonds have accounted for more than Rs 16000 crore worth funds contributed to various political parties so far a lions share is estimated to have gone to the BJP data showsAll political parties put together received more than Rs 12000 crore till last fiscal since the introduction of the nowannulled electoral bond scheme in 2018 of which the ruling BJP got nearly 55 per cent or Rs 6565 crore according to the data available with Election Commission and Association for Democratic Reforms ADRWhile the partywise data for the current fiscal 202324 would be available later after they file annual audit reports for the year ADR put the collective amount of funds generated through sale of electoral bonds between March 2018 and January 2024 at Rs 1651811 croreOn an average these bonds are estimated to account for over half of total contributions received by the parties though it is more than 90 per cent in case of some regional parties that are in power in their states In case of the BJP as well electoral bonds account for more than half of its overall incomeThe BJP replaced Congress as the countrys richest party since the last year of UPAII It had total income of Rs 6738 crore in fiscal year 201314 as against Rs 598 crore of the Congress Since then BJPs income has mostly been rising while the Congress has seen its fortunes decline except for a few years in betweenIn the year 201819 the first full fiscal after introduction of electoral bonds BJPs income had more than doubled to Rs 2410 crore from Rs 1027 crore while that of the Congress also rose sharply from Rs 199 crore to Rs 918 croreDuring the last fiscal 202223 BJPs total income stood at Rs 2360 crore of which nearly Rs 1300 crore came through electoral bonds In the same year the Congress saw its total income fall to Rs 452 crore of which Rs 171 crore came through electoral bondsThe BJP saw the funds coming through electoral bonds rise from Rs 1033 crore in 202122 while that of the Congress fell from Rs 236 crore in that year Among other parties TMC received Rs 325 crore through these bonds in the last fiscal while it was Rs 529 crore for BRS Rs 185 crore for DMK Rs 152 crore for BJD and Rs 34 crore for TDP The Samajwadi Party saw its electoral bonds contribution fall to nil while that of the Shiromani Akali Dal was also zeroNearly half of funds in electoral bonds come from corporates while the rest is from other sourcesThe Supreme Court on Thursday annulled the electoral bonds scheme for political funding saying it violates the constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression as well as the right to informationAn 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 payee thus giving the donor anonymityThere is no upper limit on the number of bonds one can buy or donate while these were available in denominations of Rs 1000 Rs 10000 Rs 1 lakh Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore the last being the most sold categoryThese bonds only sold through select branches of staterun State Bank of India need to be redeemed by the political parties within 15 days failing which the fund gets transferred to the PM National Relief FundThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever