New Delhi: The BJP made the most by selling its electoral bonds in the year 2019-2020 when it got Rs 2,555 crore, fresh data on the electoral bonds made public by the Election Commission on Sunday showed. The encashment took place in a big election year, with the Lok Sabha elections being held. A year prior to that, in 2018-19, the BJP made Rs 1,450 crore.
DH earlier reported how the sale of electoral bonds saw a spike during key electoral events, with the BJP making the most of it. In 2022-23, the BJP made Rs 1,294 crore and in 2023-24, till September 30, 2023, it encashed Rs 421 crore. In 2017-18, the party encashed bonds worth Rs 210 crore, and in 2021-22, it made Rs 1,033 crore. The BJP made the least on electoral bonds in 2020-21 when it encashed only Rs 22 crore.
As per the data, the BJP encashed electoral bonds worth Rs 6,986.5 crore in all, with the Trinamool Congress remaining the second-largest recipient of donations at Rs 1,397 crore. The Congress, with an encashment of Rs 1,334.35 crore, was the third highest, and the Bharath Rashtra Samithi being the fourth highest at Rs 1,322 crore.
The data released by the EC on Sunday, the second such set of data, includes lists of donations before April 2019 – between March 9, 2018 and April 11, 2019. As per the new figures, BJP made Rs 2,658.35 crore, while the Congress made Rs 530.1 crore, and Trinamool Congress got Rs 97.28 crore.
On Thursday, the EC released data from April 12, 2019 to January 24, 2024 and on Sunday, the data was from the sealed cover data of electoral bonds sent to the EC by the Supreme Court registry. It, however, doesn’t include names of donors, but some of the parties made voluntary disclosures. The BJP was among the parties that did not disclose that and said that it was “not required” to do so.
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