So far in FY20, a total of Rs 3,355.93 crore worth of electoral bonds have been sold. This is higher than in the entire previous financial year, when Rs 2,550.78 crore’s worth were sold
More than Rs 6,000 crore worth of electoral bonds have been sold in 12 cycles since January 2018, 55 per cent of these in 2019-20, but which parties received how much will only become clear by October 2020 when political parties’ audit reports are due. Electoral bonds were introduced by the central government in January 2018 with the purported aim to check the flow of unaccounted money into–and improve the financial transparency of–India’s political system.
However, their effectiveness for these purposes, and the scope for their misuse, have been debated, because in effect electoral bonds have made political donations non-traceable as the identities of neither the donor nor the donee have to be disclosed.
Although the seller bank, the State Bank of India (SBI) alone at present, must conduct the usual KYC (know-your-customer) verifications, and payments for purchase of bonds are to be made by cheque, draft or online transfer, SBI is obligated to not disclose the donor’s identity except if ordered by a court or demanded by a law enforcement agency. Here’s what data accessed by Factly through multiple Right to Information applications and from an analysis of information received from SBI shows…
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