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Journalism of Courage
THE ELECTORAL bond data released by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday revealed that 333 individuals purchased bonds worth Rs 358.91 crore between April 2019 and January 2024.
Among them, 63 individual s purchased bonds totalling to more than Rs 1 crore, which, at Rs 310.73 crore, form almost 87% of all donations made by individuals.
Within this group, the top 4 donors — Lakshmi Niwas Mittal, Laxmi Vallabhdas Merchant, K R Raja J T, and Rahul Bhatia — each bought bonds worth Rs 20 crores or more.
Mittal is on top of the list, buying bonds worth Rs 35 crore. Raja J T and Merchant bought bonds worth Rs 25 crore each, while Bhatia purchased bonds worth Rs 20 crore. Put together, they form 29.25% of the individual donations.
Ten individuals — including the aforementioned names — bought bonds worth Rs 10 crore or more. They were Inder Thakurdas Jaisinghani (Rs 14 crore), Rajesh Mannalal Agrawal (Rs 13 crore), Rahul Jagannath Joshi (Rs 10 crore), Harmesh Rahul Joshi (Rs 10 crore), and Saurabh Gupta (Rs 10 crore).
Meanwhile, 20 individual donors purchased bonds worth Rs 5 crore or more. Together, they form almost 64% of all individual donations.
Electoral bonds worth Rs 10 lakh or more were bought by 196 individual donors. In total, they purchased bonds worth Rs 353.83 crore — or 98.59% of the total amount of electoral bonds bought by individuals.
