ECI releases fresh data on funding to political parties through electoral bonds

NEW DELHI — The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Sunday released data received from political parties on electoral bonds, which it had given to the Supreme Court in sealed covers.

The ECI in a statement said: “Political parties had filed data on Electoral Bonds in a sealed cover as directed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court’s interim order dated April 12, 2019, in the said WP No. 880 of 2017. Data so received from political parties was deposited in the Hon’ble Supreme Court without opening sealed covers. In pursuance of the Hon’ble Supreme Court’s order on March 15, 2024, the Registry of the Supreme Court has returned physical copies along with a digitised record of the same in a pen drive in a sealed cover.”

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“The Election Commission of India has today uploaded the data received in digitised form from the registry of the Supreme Court on electoral bonds on its website,” the EC added.

In fact, the last documents which were released by the ECI show only raw data related to the date of the bonds, denominations, number of bonds branch of SBI issuing the data, date of receipt and date of credit. The documents did not, however, then disclose the unique numbers of the bonds.

The Trinamool Congress has written to SBI asking for the unique numbers of the bonds so that the party can comply with the Supreme Court’s directions. The BJP has not given any such request to SBI. However, the party has given raw data.

Likewise, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has denied getting “any donation via electoral bonds”. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) also denied receiving donations via electoral bonds. However, the Congress said it will release raw data given by SBI to the EC.