Video Editor: Mohd Irshad Alam
Cameraperson: Ribhu Chatterjee
"Bond. Electoral Bond."
The Pandora's box has been opened. After six years of secrecy shrouding the electoral bonds — introduced by the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in 2018 — more information has come out since the orders of the Supreme Court of India.
Many revelations have tumbled out since The Quint has been consistently investigating into it ever since the Election Commission of India (ECI) released the State Bank of India (SBI) data on their website.
So far, we've covered the firms that were the biggest donors to BJP during 2019 polls, firms who have been the biggest donors in the last five years and many stories decoding and deciphering the various corporations and their donations across sectors, lottery, Reliance-linked firms, pharma, construction, beef exporting, energy.
As per the Supreme Court's order, the SBI has also submitted all the electoral bonds details, including the alphanumeric codes to the ECI on Thursday, 21 March.
But how does this affect you as a voter? Why should you care with these stories as India heads into elections? Let us explain why.
First, a little refresher — What are the Electoral Bonds?
Notified on 2 January 2018, electoral bonds are a controversial funding instrument that allows donations to flow through the banking system, but masks the identity of donors.
These bonds were introduced as an alternative to cash donations made to political parties in order to bring 'transparency' in political funding.
A person can buy these bonds, either individually or jointly with other individuals.
The government had stated, "Only the Political Parties registered under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (43 of 1951) and which secured not less than 1% of the votes polled in the last General Election to the House of the People or the Legislative Assembly of the State, shall be eligible to receive the Electoral Bonds."
However, the Supreme Court struck down electoral bonds as unconstitutional in a landmark judgment on 15 February 2024.
But Wait, Who Paid These Parties?
At present, the SBI has given the data to the election commission in two separate categories — donors who purchased bonds and recipients who encashed them.
From what we know now, over the last five years, the BJP is the biggest recipient of funds through electoral bonds — it received Rs 8,700 crore, more than all the other parties put together. However, the party hasn't declared which companies bought and donated these bonds to them.
We had also established that at least 14 out of the top 30 companies which purchased electoral bonds from 12 April 2019 to 24 January 2024 faced action by central or state probe agencies.
Such correlation was possible by mapping the timings their donations and drawing a parallel with the company receiving major projects around the same timeline. However, we'll be able to draw definite correlation once we have the alphanumeric numbers.
For example, have you heard of Rithwik Projects Private Limited (RPPL)?
This Hyderabad-headquartered mining and infrastructure company was founded by ruling BJP's Rajya Sabha MP, CM Ramesh and they donated electoral bonds worth Rs 45 crores to political parties.
As a major player in the infrastructure development sector across India, Rithwik Projects holds important government contracts.
Thirteen days after it bagged the Rs 1,098-crore Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract for the Sunni Dam Hydro Electric Project in Himachal Pradesh, the company bought:
Five bonds of Rs 1 crore each on 27 January 2023.
Forty bonds worth Rs 40 crore on 11 April 2023.
The Letter of Award for Civil & Hydro-Mechanical works was issued on 14 January 2023 and two months later, a contract agreement for the same was executed.
These donations were made just ahead of the Assembly elections in Karnataka (May 2023) and between Tripura, Meghalaya, and Nagaland (February 2023).
Other instances such as the SBI data suggesting that Navayuga Engineering Company Private Limited — the company that built the Silkyara Tunnel in Uttarkashi which collapsed on 12 November 2023 — had purchased electoral bonds worth at least Rs 55 crore.
But How Would The Alphanumeric Numbers Help?
Let us first understand what alphanumeric numbers or code are.
Notably, the existence of this hidden alphanumeric code on the bonds was first revealed by journalist Poonam Agarwal in 2018 after she purchased two bonds and got them tested by a forensic lab.
Another investigation carried out in November 2019 found that the SBI actually records these hidden numbers — making the government's claim of donor anonymity untrue.
The SBI had then stated that the numbers served as a "security feature," asserting that there was no mechanism in place to establish a direct link between donors and the political parties they supported.
But, here's the catch.
Several other parties such as these three parties — the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Janata Dal (Secular) — revealed the names of all their donors — busting the myth that the bonds were anonymous.
Former Economic Affairs Secretary and Finance Secretary of India Subhash Garg has however, stated that by the design of electoral bond scheme, this alpha-numeric security code was not to be recorded anywhere as it was built as a security feature to rule out the production of fake bonds.
What remains to be seen is that even after the codes are released, a gap will remain. We won't know about the data between March 2018 and April 2019 as the apex court had only asked for information after 12 April 2019.
So, How Does This Affect You As a Voter?
Transparency activist and war veteran Commodore Lokesh Batra, through an RTI that he had filed, revealed that the SBI had charged Rs 13.50 crore to the government towards commission, printing and other expenses for managing and operating the electoral bonds scheme.
So even though the scheme was exempted from any tax, through this commission, the taxpayer bore the cost of it indirectly.
With regards to electoral bonds, the transfer of money is important to understand.
An Indian voter pays taxes to the government, which is run by political parties.
Political parties in power give contract payments and benefits to corporations and industrialists. These parties also control the law enforcement agencies.
The corporations or the industrialist issue the electoral bonds to political parties. Hence, the taxpayer's money circulates in a loop.
Apart from other obvious reasons that such electoral bonds schemes and their transparency or the lack of it, impacts the perceptions of the voter in more ways than one:
To know how these top firms get their funding on projects which will come up/already exist in your respective cities.
Since taxpayer's money involved, it will be an attempt to hold the government accountable on where the money is being spent.
Election year or not, it will give a glimpse into why the BJP is the richest national party in India. Learning about the kind of funds or share in these bonds they have acquired will make it easier for a voter to know about their wealth accumulation.
Moreover, some of these players, such as BJP's Rajya Sabha MP CM Ramesh as mentioned above, now also want to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
On another note, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had also made a misleading remark that BJP received around Rs 6,000 crore worth of bonds, whereas the total number of bonds was Rs 20,000 crores.
This argument did not hold water as data from the SBI showed bonds worth Rs 16,492 crore were redeemed between March 2018 and January 2024. Out of this, BJP received Rs 8,252 crore.
Hence, it is all linked: projects by these firms, actions by elected political leaders and the taxes that you pay.
All of this impacts you, the Indian voter.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)