NEW DELHI: While the debate over political funding via electoral bonds continues, an analysis of such bonds sold and redeemed in the past two-and-a-half years shows political parties received maximum donation during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
A total of 12,773 electoral bonds worth Rs 64,092.68 crore were purchased between March 2018 and October 2020.
Of the total value, maximum 55.79 per cent was of the electoral bonds purchased in March and April 2019, a period when the general elections took place, a report by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) revealed.
The highest 4,681 electoral bonds worth Rs 2,256.37 cr ore(34.75 per cent) were purchased during April 2019, followed by 2,742 bonds worth Rs 1,365.69 crore (21.03 per cent) in March and 1,187 bonds worth Rs 822.26 crore (12.66 per cent) in May.
In October this year, the month which saw Bihar polls, 321 bonds worth Rs 282.29 cr were purchased.
The analysis found that of a total of 12,773 electoral bonds sold, 5,981 (46.83 per cent ) were in the denomination of Rs 1 crore while 4,943 (38.70 per cent) were in the denomination of Rs 10 lakh. The highest number of bonds (2,058) in the denomination of Rs 1 crore and 1,914 bonds in the denomination of Rs 10 lakh were purchased in April 2019.
In March 2019, 1,264 bonds in the denomination of Rs 1 crore and 969 bonds of Rs 10 lakh each were sold.
In terms of value, Mumbai witnessed the maximum sale of 3,042 bonds worth Rs 2,022.964 crore (31.16 per cent of the total value), followed by 3,566 bonds worth Rs 1,491.708 crore (22.98 per cent) in Kolkata and 1,696 bonds worth Rs 952.62 crore (14.67 per cent) in New Delhi.
Hyderabad and Bhubaneswar accounted for 13.34 per cent and 5.45 per cent of the total value of bonds sold.
The remaining 12 cities including Gandhinagar, Bengaluru and Chennai accounted for purchase of 2,074 bonds worth Rs 805.26 crore.
Highest number of bonds (1,932) in the denomination of Rs 1 crore were purchased in Mumbai. The ADR is pushing for scrapping poll funding through bonds saying its opaqueness infringes on citizens’ ‘right to know’.