Electoral Bonds: Meet BJP's biggest donors

Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Ltd. was the largest donor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party over the past five years, purchasing about 670 crore rupees of electoral bonds, data from the commission showed.

By Swati Gupta, Advait Palepu, and Andre Tartar

India’s Election Commission released new information Thursday showing the ruling party’s biggest donors under a now-banned political financing tool.

Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Ltd. was the largest donor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party over the past five years, purchasing about Rs 670 crore ($81 million) of electoral bonds, data from the commission showed.

Qwik Supply Chain Pvt Ltd., Aditya Birla Group and Bharti Airtel Ltd. were close behind, based on Bloomberg calculations of the figures released. The BJP’s top five donors, including subsidiaries, made contributions of a total of at least Rs 1900 crore to the party through electoral bonds from March 2018 until January 2024. The party earned Rs 6,060 crore via the bonds over the period, almost half of all funding raised through the system.

Top Five Donors to the BJP through Electoral Bonds.

Founded in 1989, Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering and Infrastructure is involved in road construction, dams, irrigation projects, power plants, transmission lines, communication equipment, renewable energy and media.

The company’s order book stood at more than Rs 1 lakh 87 thousand crore as of September 2023, according to a Jan 10 note by Crisil Ratings. The group also owns a 50.2 per cent stake in Olectra Greentech Ltd, an electric bus manufacturer with a long-term technology sourcing agreement with China-based Byd Co Ltd.

More than 90 per cent of donations made by Qwik Supply Chain and Bharti Airtel went to the BJP, compared with about 60 per cent of contributions by Megha and Vedanta Ltd., the sixth-biggest donor, the figures show.

In a surprise decision last month, the Supreme Court banned electoral bonds, which allowed political parties to anonymously receive campaign contributions from donors. The court said the system was unconstitutional and violated voters’ rights to information necessary for them to cast their ballots.

The data released by the Election Commission on Thursday came from State Bank of India, the only lender authorized to facilitate the buying and cashing of the electoral bonds. The bank released information that allowed donations to be matched to recipients, shedding light on political parties’ source of funding through the bonds for the first time.

Opposition parties and critics have said the electoral bonds scheme and the anonymity which came along with it provided an unfair advantage to the ruling party. India’s main opposition party collected only Rs 140 crore through electoral bonds over the past five years, or about 11 per cent of the total bonds sold.

The data comes weeks before India’s national elections kick off on April 19. Voting will take place over seven phases until June 1. The results are expected to be declared on June 4.