New Delhi: Since the government was able to pass legislation okaying electoral bonds in 2018, electoral bonds worth Rs 15,956.3096 crore have been sold. This has happened in 29 tranches. State Bank of India (SBI) has stated to transparency activist and war veteran, Commodore Lokesh Batra in a reply to a query filed by him under the Right to Information (RTI), reports Livemint.The State Bank of India, the designated bank, authorised to issue Electoral Bonds, has charged Rs 13.50 crore to the government towards its “commission, printing and other expenses for managing and operating the Electoral Bonds Scheme”. Lokesh Batra told The Indian Express, “the irony of the scheme is that while donors are not required to pay any service charges (commission) to SBI, and even printing cost of EBs, it is the government or ultimately the tax payers who bear this cost…for enabling transactions of anonymous tax-free funding to political parties through the opaque Electoral Bonds Scheme 2018.”The RTI has also revealed that of the total bonds that were sold, 194 bonds worth Rs 23.8874 crore were not encashed, and ended up getting transferred to the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund (PMNRF). Between April 2017 and March 2022, the PMNRF had secured Rs 2,065.69 crore.These controversial source of funding political parties have come under flak by activists and opposition parties as being opaque and possibly routing unaccounted for money to political parties. Previously, there was a limit to the proportion of funds a company could give to political parties, but not anymore. The Modi government in hearings in the Supreme Court held four years after petitions were filed, pleaded to protect the right to privacy of big corporate donors to political parties. The Supreme Court has reserved its verdict in the case on November 2, 2023. A former chief election commissioner, S.Y. Qureshi, wrote of the union government’s argument that citizens need not know about who was funding whom, “it was disturbing to hear the argument of the SG that citizens have no right to know the donors/recipients’ identities. This statement would behove a banana republic, not the world’s largest democracy aspiring to be Vishwaguru.”Electoral bonds can be purchased by any citizen of India or entity incorporated or established in the country. An individual can buy electoral bonds, either singly or jointly, with other individuals. Only registered political parties which secure not less than 1% of the votes polled in the last Lok Sabha or state legislative assembly election are eligible to receive them.Since the launch of the electoral bond scheme in 2018, the BJP has remained the net gainer by far of electoral bonds. It has received 57% of the Rs 9,200 crore in electoral bond funds while the Congress got 10%, according to Bloomberg.
