Indian Electoral Bonds Data Opens a Pandora’s Box

The electoral bonds data published by the Election Commission of India on its official website on 14 Mar has opened a Pandora’s Box for the donors, the beneficiaries, and even for the State Bank of India, for there are computing errors in the data. 1,260 companies and individuals purchased 18,872 electoral bonds worth $1.5B between 12 Apr 2019 and 15 Feb 2024. 20,423 bonds were redeemed which amount to 1,551 extra bonds than were bought. Data on 3,346 bonds purchased between 1-11 Apr 2019 is absent. 1,609 of these bonds were redeemed. Top donors are unknown companies like Future Gaming, Megha Engineering, and Qwikssupply Chain whose income over three years is a fraction of the bonds they bought. For example, Future Gaming and Hotel Services PR, bought Bonds worth $164.8M – six times over their three year net profit of $25.9M. This is lottery king Santiago Martin's company. Martin has been to jail a few times over frauds and has an open court case in Panjab. Big companies such as Adani, Ambani, and Tatas are missing. Obviously, funds are being routed through these fronts. Out of the top 30 companies that donated through electoral bonds, at least 14 were raided by central agencies, Central Bureau of Investigation, and Income Tax and Enforcement Directorate. It is clear the BJP has been using agencies to threaten companies and extort money. The top beneficiaries are BJP - 46.74%, TMC - 13.00 %, and INC - 11.39%. SAD got $0.8M or 0.06%. A couple of Panjab companies also bought the bonds, after raids, with quid pro quo arrangements. The electoral bond scheme, introduced to eliminate black money, had quite clearly become an extortion racket (SDW Vol. 2 Issue 11, Story 9).