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New Delhi
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) is the biggest beneficiary of electoral bonds from lottery king Santiago Martin's Future Gaming, as per State Bank of India (SBI) data released by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday (Mar 21). The data showed that the TMC got at least $64.79 million (around Rs 540 crores) worth of electoral bonds from Future Gaming.
Besides the TMC, Future Gaming gave $61 million to Tamil Nadu's ruling party the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), nearly $19.1 million to Andhra Pradesh’s YSR Congress Party, nearly $12 million to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and nearly $6 million to the Congress.
Also read | Election Commission makes public details of electoral bonds submitted by SBI
Two parties in the Indian state of Sikkim - the Sikkim Krantikari Morcha and Sikkim Democratic Front - got less than $1.19 million from Future Gaming. The ECI's release of the fresh data set of electoral bonds also included their alpha-numeric numbers that can help match their purchasers with the political parties that received the funds.
EC publishes fresh data on electoral bonds
The electoral bonds scheme was scrapped by the Supreme Court last month. The scheme was launched by the BJP in 2018.
While the scheme was alive, the biggest donor to political parties was Future Gaming, the second-biggest donor was Megha Engineering, and the third-biggest donor to political parties was Qwik Supply.
In compliance of Hon’ble Supreme Court's directions, SBI has provided data pertaining to electoral bonds to ECI today ie March 21, 2024.
ECI has uploaded it on its website as received from SBI on “as is where is basis”. The data is available at this link https://t.co/VTYdeSKJmI
— Spokesperson ECI (@SpokespersonECI) March 21, 2024
The fresh data was published after details were submitted by the SBI earlier in the day in compliance with a Supreme Court order. The data includes two sets - details of redemption by political parties and details of the donors.
The details of redemption by political parties include the serial number, the date of encashment, the name of the political party, the last four digits of the account number, prefix, bond number, denomination, pay branch code and pay teller.
The SBI was the only bank authorised to sell and redeem the bonds.