The Election Commission of India (ECI) recently released data on electoral bonds received by political parties, covering the period before April 12, 2019. This comes a day after the announcement of Lok Sabha poll dates.
ECI Releases New Data On Electoral Bonds
The data includes details like bond denominations, number of bonds, issuing branch, and encashment dates, but not the unique bond numbers.
Political parties like Trinamool Congress have requested these unique numbers from the State Bank of India (SBI) to comply with Supreme Court directions.
The data reveals funding to political parties through electoral bonds. The DMK received Rs 656.5 crore, including Rs 509 crore from Future Gaming linked to lottery king Santiago Martin. The TRS (now BRS) received Rs 230.65 crore between 2018 and 2019.
It may be mentioned here that electoral bonds were recently struck down by the Supreme Court for violating transparency in political funding.