The InterGlobe group, which operates India’s largest airline IndiGo, led the pack of entities in the broader transportation sector in electoral bond purchases. As per electoral bond data released by the Election Commission of India Thursday, three InterGlobe entities —InterGlobe Aviation, InterGlobe Air Transport, and InterGlobe Real Estate Ventures — purchased bonds worth Rs 36 crore. Additionally, InterGlobe promoter Rahul Bhatia bought bonds worth another Rs 20 crore in his individual capacity, the data shows. InterGlobe group entities bought a total of 36 bonds of Rs 1 crore each, and 31 of those were bought in May 2019. The remaining five were bought in October 2023. All of Bhatia’s 29 bonds were bought in April 2021, at a time when the Indian aviation sector was still grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic. The only other airline that featured on the list of electoral bond buyers was SpiceJet, which bought a total of 20 bonds between January and July of 2021 with a cumulative value of Rs 65 lakh.
