The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) received the majority of contributions from the sale of New Delhi Electoral Bonds between October 1 and 10, shows the data acquired under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
The SBI stated in response to Commodore Lokesh Batra (retd)'s RTI that a total of 741 electoral bonds worth 1 crore each was sold during the 22nd tranche. According to the report, the? BJP, the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party, and the Trinamool Congress received nearly 90% of the electoral bonds.
The SBI replied that ¡°25 political parties have opened their account for the purpose of encashing Electoral Bonds till date. (Accounts are being opened at the branches after obtaining approval from TE Deptt.).¡± This development comes before this year's assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat.
In an effort to increase transparency in political funding, electoral bonds have been introduced as an alternative to cash donations to political parties. The State Bank of India (SBI) is the only authorized bank to issue and redeem electoral bonds.
Any Indian citizen can purchase the bonds for ten days each in January, April, July, and October unless otherwise specified by the Central Government.
Donors buy electoral bonds anonymously and they last for 15 days from the time they are issued. Donors can purchase these from a bank as debt instruments, which the political party can then cash in. These can only be redeemed by an eligible party by depositing the amount in its designated bank account.
Issued by SBI, the bonds have denominations of Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10 lakh, and Rs 1 crore.?
To receive electoral bonds, political parties must be registered under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act of 1951 and have received at least one per cent of the votes cast in the most recent general election to the House of the People or the Legislative Assembly.
The electoral bond scheme, which was first proposed in 2017 and went into effect in 2018, has been criticized for not being transparent. Additionally, those who oppose it have asserted that the ruling party, the BJP, received a significant portion of the donations.?
According to data from the Election Commission, the BJP received more than 75% of the electoral bonds in 2019¨C20.
The Supreme Court also held that the right to freedom of expression (Article 19) is complemented by the "right to know,", particularly in relation to elections. The public doesn't get any information from electoral bonds. It impacts the idea of free and fair elections.
The electoral bonds program lacks transparency in election funding due to the anonymity of donors. Since these bonds are sold through a bank owned by the government (SBI) makes it possible for the government to know who is funding its opponents and increases the possibility for the current government to either extort money, especially from large businesses or to take advantage of them for not funding the ruling party, giving the party in power an unfair advantage.
The Central government has exempted political parties from disclosing contributions made through electoral bonds by amending the Finance Act of 2017. As a result, voters will not be aware of which party has received funding and in what amounts from which individual, business, or organisation.
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