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Journalism of Courage
EIGHT OF the 17 unlisted companies in the lists of top ten donors of electoral bonds to the BJP, the TMC and the Congress, donated many times the total profit they made over the four financial years since April 2019. Four of these companies reported overall losses in that window.
Topping the list is Future Gaming and Hotel Services Pvt Ltd which donated a total of Rs 1,368 crore in bonds while making a cumulative profit of only Rs 368 crore in four years. While the company donated to the TMC bonds worth Rs 542 crore, the BJP and the Congress received Rs 100 crore and Rs 50 crore respectively.
The other seven companies on the list donated Rs 954 crore against their collective loss of over Rs 85 crore in that period. The BJP is their top beneficiary with Rs 530 crore, followed by the Congress (Rs 175 crore) and the TMC (Rs 126 crore).
Four companies reported overall losses from 2019-20 to 2022-23. Kolkata-based MKJ Group’s Sasmal Infrastructure was Rs 1.67 crore in the red but spent Rs 44 crore on bonds. Tamil Nadu’s SEPC Power Pvt Ltd reported a loss of Rs 98.48 crore and bought bonds worth Rs 40 crore. Kolkata’s Avees Trading Finance Pvt Ltd reported a loss of Rs 83.13 crore while donating Rs 112.50 crore in bonds. With an overall loss of Rs 36.65 crore, Chennai Green Woods Pvt Ltd picked up bonds for Rs 105 crore.
The other three companies that donated more than the profit they reported are Mumbai-based Qwik Supply Chain Pvt Ltd (Rs 410 crore against a total profit of Rs 109.59 crore) which is associated with Reliance Industries. The remaining two are Kolkata-based MKJ Group’s Keventer Food Park (Rs 195 crore against Rs 15.63 crore profit) and Transways Exim Pvt Ltd (Rs 47 crore against Rs 9.66 crore profit).
Besides the above eight, two of the 17 top unlisted donors purchased bonds worth more than half of their overall profit reported during 2019-20 and 2022-23. They are Ahmedabad-based Prarambh Securities Private Limited (Rs 78.75 crore against Rs 112.18 crore profit), and Mumbai’s BKC Properties Private Limited (Rs 20 crore against Rs 21.97 crore profit).
A total of 24 companies (17 unlisted and seven listed) are the top ten donors to the BJP, the TMC and the Congress. Since the identity of two companies on the Congress’s top 10 list — Yashoda Super Speciality Hospital and Siddhi Trading — are not verifiable, the two subsequent top donors to the party were considered for this analysis. Of these 24 companies, 17 were unlisted companies.
The seven listed companies excluded from this analysis are Vedanta Limited, DLF Commercial Developers Limited, Philips Carbon Black Limited, Bharti Airtel Limited, IFB Agro Industries Limited, Madanlal Limited and MKJ Enterprises Ltd. Of this, Bharti Airtel Limited also reported an overall loss since April 2019 while Madanlal Limited and MKJ Enterprises Ltd donated more than their profit in bonds.
