Kolkata tops the list of cities where the most number of electoral bonds (EB) were sold since their inception.
Introduced on January 2, 2018 by the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, the Electoral Bonds Scheme was scrapped by the Supreme Court on Thursday.
The apex court declared the scheme 'unconstitutional' for violating citizens' right to information.
According to the data compiled by election watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), the most number of electoral bonds were sold in Kolkata, from 2018 to 2024. The city saw the sale of 7,834 EBs, followed by Mumbai (5,426), Hyderabad (4,812), New Delhi (3,662), Chennai (1,869), and Gandhinagar (1,189), among others.
Other cities where EBs were bought include Bhubaneshwar (857), Bengaluru (826), Jaipur (309), Chandigarh (205), Lucknow (109), Panaji (411), Thiruvananthapuram (87), Raipur (124), Guwahati (162), Bhopal (60), Visakhapatnam (80) and Patna (8).
With nearly 55 per cent of EB proceedings going to the BJP, the saffron party was the biggest beneficiary of the scheme.
The Congress, expectedly, welcomed the Supreme Court verdict saying that it would stop the BJP from acting on such 'mischievous ideas' in the future.
"We hope that Modi Government will stop resorting to such mischievous ideas in future and listens to the Supreme Court, so that democracy, transparency and level-playing field persists," Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said.
Published 16 February 2024, 14:02 IST