'Electoral Bonds worth Rs 3622 Cr sold in March-April'

Electoral Bonds worth over Rs 3622 crore were sold in the past two months, the State Bank of India stated in response to a query filed under the Right to Information Act.

The SBI sold Electoral Bonds worth Rs 1365.69 crore in March and worth Rs 2256.37 crore in April, the bank said in its response to a query by Vihar Durve, an RTI activist based in Pune.

The Election Commission declared the schedule of the Lok Sabha elections on March 10.

Most of the Electoral Bonds – worth Rs 694 crore – were sold in Mumbai in April, followed by bonds worth Rs 417.31 crore in Kolkata, Rs 408.62 crore in New Delhi and Rs 338.07 crore in Hyderabad. The SBI sold Electoral Bonds worth Rs 94.90 crore in Bengaluru in April.

The Electoral Bonds are in fact bearer instruments – worth Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore – and issued in multiples to any citizen of India or a body incorporated in India for making donations to the political parties of their choice. Only the SBI is authorised to sell the Electoral Bonds whenever the union Ministry of Finance notifies the sale of the bonds for a given period.

Just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the union Ministry of Finance on February 28 notified yet another sale of Electoral Bonds in three tranches – March 1-15, April 1-20 and May 6-15.

The Association of Democratic Reforms, a non-governmental organisation, moved the Supreme Court alleging that the Electoral Bonds had opened the floodgates of unlimited corporate donations to political parties and anonymous financing by Indians, Indian companies or companies based outside India. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) also challenged it before the Supreme Court.