Parties would rather conceal than reveal, according to the most recent electoral bond statistics

The remaining information on the purchase and redemption of electoral bonds that political parties had provided to the Election Commission of India (ECI) was uploaded on Sunday and was sent in a sealed cover to the Supreme Court. After receiving the sealed cover returned from the supreme court, the ECI made the information public. Political parties had, in accordance with the April 12, 2019, interim ruling of the apex court, submitted electoral bond data under sealed cover.

Only a small number of parties—DMK, AIADMK, JD(S), and National Conference—have disclosed the names of their contributors, according to the most recent information provided by the ECI.

The most recent information provided by the poll panel is a part of the data dump that the Supreme Court ordered be made public and includes information on 523 recognized and unrecognized political parties. The most recent statistics, reportedly, relate to the time frame prior to April 12, 2019. The survey panel has released this second batch of data. The poll panel released the information of the electoral bonds after this date last week.

Without cracking open the sealed covers, data obtained from political parties was submitted with the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court Registry has delivered hard copies and a digital copy of the same on a pen drive with a sealed cover in compliance with the SC’s March 15 ruling. The Election Commission announced on its website that it has published the data on electoral bonds that it obtained in digital form from the Supreme Court registry.

Election-related ties. a representational image.
Time will tell whether the experiment known as “Electoral bonds” was worthwhile. RSS
The latest information from the ECI is included in a data dump that was made public in response to a Supreme Court order, and it includes information on 523 recognized and unrecognized political parties. After the data SBI shared with the ECI, another dataset was released by the latter last week. The only bank permitted to offer and redeem the now-defunct election bonds was the SBI.

According to the statistics, the TMC received Rs 1,397 crore, the Congress received Rs 1,334 crore, and the BJP received the most amount of money via these bonds at Rs 6,986.50 crore.

The most recent disclosure is predicated on statements made in November of last year by a number of political parties on the bonds they have redeemed since the program’s inception in early 2018. It contains hundreds of pages worth of scanned versions of the major parties’ disclosures.

Election-related ties. a representational image.
Election bonds brought in Rs 6,986.5 crore for the BJP; EC data shows that Future Gaming is the largest contributor to the DMK.