The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das on April 5 declined to comment on the electoral bond data, saying the matter was outside the purview of the central bank.
“On electoral bonds, we have no comments. It’s a Supreme Court judgment, which has to be complied with and it’s in pursuance with judgment. State Bank of India has taken the required action. The issue of who has contributed more than its net worth is not in the domain of the RBI,” Das said in response to Moneycontrol’s question during the post-policy press conference.
A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court on February 15 unanimously struck down the electoral bond scheme as “unconstitutional”. The top court held that the poll-funding scheme violated Article 19 of the Constitution by not disclosing the details of funding.
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On March 21, the Election Commission published detailed data on the electoral bonds provided by the State Bank of India, including the alphanumeric number on each bond, which links the donor to the recipient political party.
The move came after the top court on March 18 told SBI, the only bank dealing in the bonds, to stop being selective and make a complete disclosure of all details by March 21.
The details must include the unique bond numbers that match the buyers with the recipient political parties.
The Bharatiya Janata Party was by far the biggest beneficiary of the electoral bonds scheme, receiving Rs 6,061 crore as political donations in the last five years, according to data submitted by State Bank of India (SBI) to the Election Commission of India of March 14. This amounts to 48 percent of all electoral bonds encashed by political parties since the start of 2019-20 and before it was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court earlier this year.
At second place is Trinamool Congress, which mopped up Rs 1,610 crore, followed by the Indian National Congress at Rs 1,422 crore.
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