In the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls amid nationalist sentiments after the Pulwama terror attack, the main Opposition, Congress, had recorded a surge in donations through poll bonds. The party had received Rs 622 crore through poll bonds in 2019, nearly 85% of which had come in the months of March and April when the canvassing for Lok Sabha elections was at its peak. The party received Rs 270.75 crore in March 2019, Rs 260.11 crore in April, and Rs 50 crore in May through electoral bonds. In October that year, the Congress received only Rs 1.75 crore. As per the details shared by the Election Commission Sunday, the Congress in January 2019 had received Rs 39.51 crore. In the run up to the Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, where it won in December 2018, the Congress had received Rs 50.5 crore through poll bonds in October-November. The victory in three states had given the Congress a boost to challenge the BJP in the general elections in which PM Modi was seeking a second term. But the terror attack on a convoy of security personnel in Pulwama on February 14, 2019, and air strikes by the Indian Air Force inside Pakistan on February 26 changed the political mood in the country.