Poll bonds account for 10% to 100% donations to regional parties

Similarly, the YSR Congress Party’s annual report showed the party received Rs 60 crore from electoral bonds in 2021-2022 and it accounted for 64% of its total income of Rs.93.72 crore and 75% of the income from grants, contributions and donations. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi, which recently changed its name to Bharat Rashtra Samithi, received Rs 153 crore in electoral bonds, accounting for 70% of its total income of Rs 218.11 crore and 79% of the income from grants, contributions and donations.

Almost 10% of the Samajwadi Party’s declarable donations in 2021-2022 came from electoral bonds received by the party in the mail, according to its contribution report submitted to the EC.

The SP’s annual contribution report showed that the party received a total of Rs 33,00,55,516 in donations from individuals, companies and electoral trusts. Political parties are required to submit the details of all contributions in excess of Rs 20,000 each to the ECI in their annual reports as per the Representation of the People Act, 1951.

However, contributions from electoral bonds are exempt from the requirement and most prominent national and state parties do not include them in their contribution reports.

The Samajwadi Party chose to declare contributions of Rs 3.21 crore in electoral bonds. The bonds were received on two days – January 10 and January 12, 2022 – via post. For the six electoral bonds declared in the report, the party wrote: “electoral bond, by post no name” as the description.

In the years since the Electoral Bond Scheme was introduced by the government in 2018, the Samajwadi Party has declared its electoral bonds in the contribution report in one other year – 2019-2020, when it received electoral bonds of Rs 10 crore, 10 bonds of Rs 1 crore each. These accounted for the majority of its total contributions that year: Rs 15.23 crore. The party’s total declared contributions went up from Rs 50.44 lakh in 2020-2021 to Rs 33 crore in 2021-2022, likely due to the recovery after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

While the annual audited reports of all major national parties for 2021-2022, including the BJP and Congress, are not available yet, in 2020-2021, the BJP declared Rs 22.38 crore in income from electoral bonds, just under 4% of its total income from voluntary contributions. The Congress got about 10% of its total income from contributions through electoral bonds in 2020-2021, according to its report submitted to the EC.