India Inc’s 10 big groups purchased electoral bonds worth Rs 1,306 crore

Listed companies that bought the poll bonds have not disclosed the matter to the exchanges for dissemination to the investors. A section of financial observers believes market regulator Sebi should make it mandatory for companies to disclose political funding through stock exchange filings.

Leading the top firms in the purchases was Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta Group, which bought electoral bonds worth Rs 375 crore, the ECI data showed.

The Bajaj Group of companies bought electoral bonds worth Rs 48 crore, the ECI data showed. Bajaj Auto, managed by Rajiv Bajaj, bought bonds worth Rs 18 crore, while Bajaj Finance bought bonds worth Rs 20 crore. Bajaj Holdings is recorded to have bought poll bonds worth Rs 10 crore.

Rajiv Bajaj’s brother Sanjiv is the Chairperson of Bajaj Finance and MD of Bajaj Holdings.

The Aditya Birla group headed by Kumar Mangalam Birla bought bonds worth Rs 175 crore — Rs 35 crore through Ultratech Cement and Rs 33 crore through Grasim. Birla Estate Pvt Ltd also bought bonds worth Rs 2 crore, while Birla Carbon purchased for Rs 105 crore.

Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Airtel group bought bonds worth Rs 247 crore, of which Bharti Airtel accounted for Rs 198 crore.

The share of five Jindal companies/ entities, managed separately by family members, was Rs 195 crore. Of this, Jindal Steel bought bonds worth Rs 123 crore and Jindal House, an entity of the Jindals, spent Rs 10 crore.

The Mahindra Group, headed by Anand Mahindra, bought bonds worth Rs 26 crore, most of it (Rs 25 crore) by its flagship Mahindra & Mahindra.

Real estate major DLF bought bonds for Rs 160 crore with DLF Commercial Developers Ltd accounting for Rs 130 crore. The Piramals spent Rs 48 crore on the bonds.

Two TVS companies bought bonds worth Rs 26 crore, while ITC accounted for Rs 6.55 crore.

Meanwhile, names of the Indian arms of multinational companies such as Hindustan Unilever and Nestle do not figure in the list.

Pushed and prodded by the Supreme Court which struck down the electoral bonds scheme  — introduced by the first Narendra Modi government in 2018 — the Election Commission released Thursday the list of those who purchased bonds.

The total amount donated under the scheme from April 1, 2019 to February 15, 2024, was Rs 12,156 crore, of which almost half came from the top 20 donors alone, the data provided by the SBI to the ECI showed.