Electoral bonds news: In the latest development in the electoral bonds case, a list of companies who donated maximum funds to the Prime Minister Narendra-led BJP has been revealed after the State Bank of India (SBI) submitted ‘unique alpha-numeric’ details to the Election Commission of India on Thursday.
Based on the data, Telangana-based Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd is the largest donor who donated ₹664 crore between April 2019 and January 2024.
The second-biggest donor to BJP is Reliance-linked Qwik Supply Chain. As per the data available on EC’s website, the Reliance-linked company donated ₹395 crore to the saffron party.
The Keventers group took the third spot, donating ₹352 crore to the BJP, followed by the Aditya Birla group at ₹285 crore and the Bharti Airtel group at ₹236.4 crore.
Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta Group donated ₹230.15 to the BJP.
The BJP also got donations worth ₹81 crore from Haldia Energy, ₹80 crore from Western UP Power and Transmission Company, and ₹42 crore from Welspun.
Industrialist Lakshmi Mittal donated ₹35 crore to the BJP in an individual capacity, while several other individuals donated funds in the range of ₹10-25 crore to the ruling party.
On Thursday, the Election Commission made two sets of data public, comprising a list of 18,871 electoral bonds purchased, and 20,421 electoral bonds redeemed after April 12, 2019. In compliance with the Supreme Court’s directions, the SBI on Thursday provided data pertaining to electoral bonds to the Election Commission of India.
The fresh data was published by the poll panel on its website after the details were submitted by the State Bank of India earlier in the day.
On Monday, the Supreme Court had directed SBI to disclose all electoral bond details, including the unique identification code, by March 21. It had then asked the Election Commission to upload the details upon receipt from the SBI.
