Electoral bonds over Rs 1,000 crore sold in poll month; Hyderabad tops sales

In another RTI reply to The Indian Express, SBI data showed that in 2018, when the sixth tranche of electoral bonds was sold from November 1 to November 11, the total sales added up to Rs 184.20 crore. Elections to these five states were held in November-December that year.

The latest sales (29th tranche) under the electoral bond scheme saw the highest sales in Telangana’s capital of Hyderabad (Rs 359 crore), followed by Mumbai (Rs 259.30 crore), and Delhi (Rs 182.75 crore).

As has been the norm in the past, when it came to encashing the poll bonds, the New Delhi branch had the highest amount redeemed (Rs 882.80 crore). Hyderabad was a distant second at Rs 81.50 crore.

Among the other states where elections were held, poll bonds adding up to Rs 31.50 crore were sold in Jaipur (Rajasthan), Rs 5.75 crore in Raipur (Chhattisgarh), and Rs 1 crore in Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh). However, none of these three states recorded any encashment. No sales were recorded in Mizoram.

Since the scheme guarantees anonymity, the donors and recipients remain unknown, but the data suggests that the most funding came from Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi, and went to parties in Delhi, pointing to national parties.

The latest tranche was announced by the government on November 4, just two days after the Supreme Court reserved its judgment on a batch of petitions challenging the validity of the electoral bond scheme.

The government had introduced the scheme in 2018 with the aim to increase transparency of political funding. However, critics have called it opaque as the identity of the donors is kept secret.

SBI is the only bank authorised to issue electoral bonds. The total amount collected by parties through the poll bond scheme, in 29 phases since 2018, has now gone up to over 15,922.42 crore.