NEW DELHI: Activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan, who was lead counsel in the Electoral Bond case in the Supreme Court, on Thursday demanded an independent probe by Special Investigation Team (SIT) to look into the finer details of the political funding and also find if there was a quid-pro-quo between the corporate and political parties.
Addressing a press conference here a day after the Election Commission made public the Electoral Bond data with alphanumeric codes and bond numbers in two extensive lists – one that of donors and the other of the name of the parties encashing them, Bhushan said, “Electoral Bond is the largest scam of Independent India, which even bigger than 2G and coal scams. In the case of 2G and coal scams there were no money trails. But in the present case there is a certain money trail.”
To empirically establish the money trail and also the suspected quid-pro-quo between the corporate and the political parties, “there should be an independent probe by an SIT, composed of experts”. He said, “Only such an investigation can substantially establish our legitimate doubt about companies paying to political parties to get their jobs done in terms of policy, contract and otherwise.”
Bhshan said, “After doing a preliminary analysis of the data now available in public domain, it has been revealed that BJP received Rs 1,751 crore in donation through electoral bonds from various companies and in turn those companies got government contracts worth Rs 62,000 crore.”
He also alleged that the total number of firms, which were raided and in turn they donated to the BJP, is 104 and out of which 30 are identified as shell companies.
Further sharing data during the press conference Bhushan said, “In at least 49 cases, Rs 62,000 crore in postpaid/project approval were given by the central or BJP state governments, for which Rs 580 crore in kickbacks (in the form of electoral bonds) were given to the BJP within three months after approval/contract.”
“It is ironic that the ED, which has been involved in the extortion of money from corporates through electoral bonds for its BJP bosses & whose officers must be investigated and prosecuted, has arrested Kejriwal last night without a shred of documentary evidence against him, on the eve of elections. Shocking & condemnable!,” Bhushan said in one of his ‘X’ posts after the press conference.