Regarding election bonds, PM Modi said, “It makes the trail possible and allows for improvement of shortcomings.”
Rejecting the idea that the electoral bond controversy hurt his administration, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that any system has room for improvement. Those who are “dancing” over the issue, according to him, will regret it. He also emphasised that the electoral bond mechanism his administration implemented made it possible to identify the financial sources and recipients.
What was said by PM Modi?
Tell me what action we took that you believe was a setback. In response to a question on whether the electoral bond details had hurt the governing BJP, he said in an interview, “I firmly believe that those dancing over it (the bond details) and taking pride in it are going to repent.”
He said that the existence of bonds is the reason a trail is accessible now and asked if any organisation could provide information on the financing sources and their recipients for the polls conducted before 2014, the year he was elected prime minister.
“Every system has flaws. There could be certain things that might be done better,” he said.
In their attacks on the administration, opposition parties have pointed to the disclosures that followed the Supreme Court’s ruling that declared the practice of anonymous fundraising unlawful and made all information pertaining to electoral bonds available to the public.
Large purchasers of these bonds have included several companies under criminal investigation.
largest BJP donors
On March 21, the Election Commission of India (ECI) released the whole of the electoral bond information that the State Bank of India (SBI) had provided under the Supreme Court’s (SC) directives. Alpha-numeric numbers in the new data may be used to identify bond buyers with the political parties who cashed the bonds. Bond numbers are also included in the data so that contributors and the political party they belong to may be linked.
With contributions totaling more than Rs 6,000 crore over the course of the final four years of the programme, the BJP emerged as the largest recipient of electoral bonds, receiving money from a number of businesses and private citizens, including Qwik Supply, Future Gaming, and Megha Engineering.
The Election Commission disclosed data on Thursday, March 21, indicating that Megha Engineering, a Hyderabad-based company that secured many contracts for infrastructure projects, gave Rs 584 crore, Rs 395 crore, and Rs 100 crore to the BJP, Future Gaming, and Qwik Supply.
In addition, the BJP received contributions of Rs 226 crore from Vedanata, Rs 81 crore from Haldia Energy, and Rs 346 crore from Keventers Food Park, MKJ Enterprises, and Madanlal Ltd.—three companies that share the same address in Kolkata.
