NEW DELHI, March 17 -- Future Gaming and Hotel Services, the top purchaser of electoral bonds, has been revealed as the major donor to Tamil Nadu's ruling party, DMK, contributing Rs 509 crore through the now-defunct payment mode, according to Election Commission data released on Sunday.
The donations from Future Gaming, associated with its owner, "lottery king" Santiago Martin, who has been the subject of scrutiny by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), comprised over 77 per cent of the DMK's total electoral bond receipts of Rs 656.5 crore.
However, the beneficiaries of the remaining Rs 859 crore worth of bonds purchased by Future Gaming remain unknown, as most political parties have not disclosed their donors.
Megha Engineering at Rs. 105 crore, India Cements at Rs. 14 crore and Sun TV at Rs. 100 crore were other major donors of the DMK which was among the few political parties to disclose the identity of the donors. This revelation is part of a larger data release involving a total of 523 recognised and non-recognised political parties, made public by the EC following the Supreme Court's directive. This was succeeded by another dataset released by the EC last week, based on information provided by the State Bank of India (SBI), the only bank authorised to sell and redeem electoral bonds.
The most recent dataset published by the EC contains scanned copies of the disclosures made by the political parties, spanning hundreds of pages. While the initial data submitted by the SBI covered the period from April 12, 2019, until the bonds were abolished by the Supreme Court last month, the latest disclosure is based on the declarations made by various political parties in November of the previous year about the bonds they have redeemed since the scheme's inception in early 2018, excluding the final few tranches.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre received the maximum funds through these bonds at Rs 6,986.5 crore since they were introduced in 2018, followed by West Bengal's ruling party Trinamool Congress (Rs 1,397 crore), Congress (Rs 1,334 crore) and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (Rs 1,322 crore), according to the latest data shared by the EC.
Odisha's ruling party Biju Janata Dal (BJD) was the fourth-largest recipient at Rs 944.5 crore, followed by the DMK at Rs 656.5 crore and Andhra Pradesh's ruling party YSR Congress at nearly Rs 442.8 crore.
According to an earlier report compiled by NGO Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), electoral bonds worth Rs 16,518 crore were sold from March 2018 to January 2024.
Collating the two datasets, the BJP is estimated to have received a total amount of Rs 7,700 crore during the entire duration of the scheme.
According to the data released on Sunday, the Janata Dal (Secular) received bonds worth Rs 89.75 crore, including Rs 50 crore from Megha Engineering, the second-largest purchaser of electoral bonds.
Future Gaming was the biggest purchaser of electoral bonds at Rs 1,368 crore, of which nearly 37 per cent went to the DMK.
The TMC received Rs 1,397 crore through electoral bonds, making it the second-largest recipient after the BJP.
Other major parties such as the BJP, Congress, TMC and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have not revealed these details to the EC, which has now made those filings public pursuant to a Supreme Court order.
The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) redeemed bonds worth Rs 181.35 crore, Shiv Sena Rs 60.4 crore, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Rs 56 crore, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Rs 50.51 crore, Sikkim Krantikari Morcha Rs 15.5 crore, Samajwadi Party (SP) Rs 14.05 crore, Akali Dal Rs 7.26 crore, AIADMK Rs 6.05 crore, National Conference (NC) Rs 50 lakh from the Bharti Group and Sikkim Democratic Front Rs 50 lakh.
According to the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) submission to the ECI, the Bajaj Group is the party's primary donor of electoral bonds. This information was later published on the ECI's website and presented to the Supreme Court.
The party received electoral bonds worth Rs 5.75 crores from various donors between April 23, 2018, and May 25, 2019. As per the data mandated by the Supreme Court and published by the ECI, AAP has received a total of Rs 65.45 crores from April 18, 2019, to July 26, 2023, making it the 11th highest recipient of electoral bonds among political parties.
On April 10, 2019, the Bajaj Group donated Rs 3 crores to AAP in three equal instalments. The group has donated a total of Rs 48 crores as electoral bonds to all political parties.
AAP is one of the ten political parties that disclosed their donors on Sunday. However, the top three recipients of electoral bonds - the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC), and the Congress - have not yet revealed their donors.
Torrent Pharmaceuticals Limited is the second-highest donor to AAP, having donated Rs 1 crore on May 15, 2019. The Torrent group, which has donated a total of Rs 184 crores, is the 10th highest donor of electoral bonds to all political parties.
BG Shirke Construction Technology, a Maharashtra-based construction company, donated Rs 1 crore to AAP on May 21, 2019. The company, which claims to be the country's largest constructor of housing on its website, has donated a total of Rs 117 crores to political parties, making it the 13th highest donor of electoral bonds.
KMZ Investment, involved in human health activities and registered in Bengaluru, is the third-highest donor to AAP, having donated Rs 50 lakh in five separate donations of Rs 10 lakh each on April 12, 2019.
NJK Enterprises, a Bengaluru-based company primarily involved in the manufacture and export of ready-made garments, is AAP's fourth-highest donor. It donated Rs 20 lakhs on April 18, 2019, in two donations of Rs 10 lakh each.
The remaining donations listed by the party have come from individuals.
Among the major parties that have disclosed the identity of their donors, the AIADMK got most of its donations from India Cements-owned IPL cricket team Chennai Super Kings, while the contributors to the JD(S) included the Aditya Birla Group, Infosys, the JSW Group and the Embassy Group.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has declared that it will not receive funds through electoral bonds, while the filings made by the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) showed nil receipts.
Meanwhile, auto giant Hero MotoCorp made its first-ever purchase of electoral bonds worth Rs 20 crore on October 7, 2022, just months after being subjected to an income tax raid.
On that day, the company acquired 20 electoral bonds, each valued at Rs 1 crore.
The income tax department had conducted raids on Hero MotoCorp offices and the residences of its promoters, including chairman and CEO Pawan Munjal, in March of the same year. During these raids, evidence was reportedly uncovered suggesting that the company had engaged in activities such as booking bogus purchases, making significant unaccounted cash expenditures, and obtaining accommodation entries totaling over Rs 1,000 crore. Additionally, cash transactions exceeding Rs 100 crore were discovered in relation to a farmhouse in Chattarpur, Delhi.
Hero MotoCorp responded to the tax authorities' raids by characterising them as a "routine inquiry," stating that such inquiries are not uncommon before the end of the financial year. The company emphasised its commitment to compliance with the law and highlighted its robust internal financial controls and duly audited financial statements.
In November of the previous year, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had provisionally attached assets valued at around Rs 50 crore belonging to Hero MotoCorp's executive chairman, Pawan Munjal, as part of a money-laundering investigation. The attached assets included three immovable properties in Delhi. The ED alleged that Munjal had misused the Reserve Bank of India's liberalised remittance scheme by illegally transferring foreign currency and valuable items worth Rs 54 crore abroad, subsequently utilising them for personal expenses.
After the disclosures, the opposition parties have dubbed the electoral bonds as legalised corruption, while the BJP has said scrapping of the bonds could lead to the return of black money in politics.
The Supreme Court had scrapped the electoral bonds scheme in a landmark verdict last month, calling it "unconstitutional" and directed the SCI to submit the details of the bonds to the Election Commission of India.
With Agency Inputs
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.