Reliance, Adani Group not on the list
BBN Bureau
Kochi: Kerala-based companies, namely Muthoot Finance, Geojit Investment Service, Lulu India Shopping Mall, Kitex Childrenswear, and Kitex Garments, are among the corporate houses in the country that have purchased electoral bonds.
Among these firms, the Kitex group was the largest buyer of the instrument, having purchased bonds worth Rs. 25 crore in 2023. Muthoot Finance, a Non-Banking Finance Company (NBFC) belonging to the Muthoot Pappachan Group, bought bonds worth Rs. 3 crore in 2019. Lulu India Shopping Mall, promoted by billionaire Gulf-Malayalee businessman M A Yusuff Ali, acquired bonds worth Rs. 2 crore in 2022. At the bottom of the list is Geojit investment Service, which spent Rs. 10 lakh in 2022 to acquire the controversial paper.
Incidentally, Sabu M Jacob, MD of Kitex Group, the second-largest manufacturer of kids’ wear in the world, was reported to have been a major funder of the State ruling CPM. However, he fell out with the Pinarayi Vijayan government in 2021 and pledged not to invest in Kerala in tfuture. True to his words, he is setting up two world-class projects in Telangana at an estimated cost of Rs. 3000 crore.
Interestingly, Reliance and Adani Group, two major corporate houses in the country, are not on the list of bond purchasers published by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on its website. It was generally expected that they might have purchased a significant portion of the bonds designed to finance political parties.
Surprisingly, Future Gaming and Hotel Services PR, whose managing director is the well-known lottery magnate Santiago Martin, was the single largest donor to political parties between April 12, 2019, and January 24, 2024, according to the electoral bonds data published by ECI. The firm was grilled by Enforcement Directorate on money laundering charges
Other major entities that purchased the bonds include Grasim Industries, Megha Engineering, Piramal Enterprises, Torrent Power, Bharti Airtel, DLF Commercial Developers, Vedanta Ltd., Apollo Tyres, Lakshmi Mittal, Edelweiss, PVR, Kventer, Sula Wine, Welspun, Sun Pharma, and Torrent Power.
As directed by the Supreme Court in its order scrapping the highly controversial electoral bond system, on the ground that the highly secretive bond is against the Constitution-guaranteed Right to Information of citizens, the Central Government-controlled State Bank of India (SBI), the sole seller of the bond, shared the details with the ECI on March 12, and informed it to the apex court on March 13. The court had given time to ECI until March 15 to upload the details.
The electoral body has uploaded the ‘Disclosure of Electoral Bonds’ submitted by SBI into two sections on an “as is where is basis”.
The political parties that have redeemed electoral bonds include the BJP, Congress, AIADMK, BRS, Shiv Sena, TDP, YSR Congress, DMK, JDS, NCP, Trinamool Congress, JDU, RJD, AAP, and the Samajwadi Party, according to the data.
Previously, the apex court had set a deadline of March 6 for SBI to submit the data, and the ECI was instructed to make it public by March 13. However, the bank requested the court for an extension until June 30.
This extension request was challenged by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a New Delhi-based non-profit organization in India, dedicated to electoral and political reforms since 1999. Notably, ADR was among the petitioners who opposed the electoral bonds scheme.
Electoral Bonds: Electoral bonds were introduced in the country on January 28, 2017, by then Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Arun Jaitley. The objective was to facilitate transparent political funding. These bonds, issued exclusively by SBI, served as a designated financial instrument offering individuals and corporate entities the opportunity to contribute funds to political parties discreetly, as the bonds had no identification of the donor and the political party to which it was issued.
Available in denominations of Rs. 1,000, electoral bonds could be acquired from SBI branches during specific periods stipulated by the government. Political parties could then redeem those bonds through their designated accounts within a prescribed timeframe.
However, anonymous political funding via electoral bonds was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in its landmark judgment on February 15, 2024. The five-judge Constitution bench mandated the ECI to disclose donors, the amounts donated by them, and the recipients.
