NEW DELHI, Feb 15: The ruling party BJP is likely to be hit the hardest from the Supreme Court’s verdict on Thursday scrapping the electoral bond scheme as the party had received over 60% of the donations made under the scheme between 2016-2022.
Just months ahead of the Lok Sabha 2024 polls, a five-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, declared the electoral bonds scheme unconstitutional. The court said the scheme infringes upon the citizens’ fundamental right to information.
Electoral bonds, a financial instrument that allows individuals and businesses to make anonymous donations to political parties, were introduced by the BJP government in 2018 as an alternative to cash donations. They were pitched as an initiative to bring transparency in political funding.
According to Election Commission data, 28,030 electoral bonds worth ₹ 16,437.63 crore were sold between 2016 and 2022.
The BJP was the primary beneficiary of these donations and received ₹ 10,122 crore, nearly 60% of the total donations. The main opposition Congress party came a distant second, receiving ₹ 1,547 crore, about 10 per cent in the same period, while West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress got ₹ 823 crore, about 8 per cent of all electoral bonds.
Donations made to the BJP through electoral bonds were three times more than that of all other 30 parties combined on the list.
The donations received by seven national parties, according to the report were:
BJP: ₹ 10,122 crore
Congress: ₹ 1,547 crore
TMC: ₹ 823 crore
CPI(M): ₹ 367 crore
NCP: ₹ 231 crore
BSP: ₹ 85 crore
CPI: ₹ 13 crore
EC data also shows that from 2017 to 2022, the BJP received over five times the donations through electoral bonds than the Congress did.
(Manas Dasgupta)