Electoral bonds worth Rs 614.33 crore redeemed by political parties in October: RTI

Electoral bonds worth Rs 614.33 crore were sold and the whole redeemed by political parties during the latest round of bond sale in early October, according to an RTI response.

In the previous phase in July, bonds worth Rs 150.51 crore were sold and the whole redeemed. In April, bonds worth Rs 695.34 crore were sold and only two bonds worth Rs 1,000 each were not redeemed.

According to the RTI response provided by the SBI to transparency Commodore Lokesh Batra (retired) on Tuesday, the highest sale was in the Kolkata branch of the SBI where bonds worth Rs 200.67 crore were sold between October 1 and 10.

Chennai branch came second with Rs 195 crore sale followed by Hyderabad where the bond sale was Rs 140 crore. There were sales of bonds in Bhubhaneswar, Mumbai, and Delhi branches also.

When it comes to redeeming the bonds, the Hyderabad branch topped the list with Rs 153 crore while the KoLkata branch had bonds worth Rs 140.94 crore crore redeemed.

Since 2018 when the electoral bond came into being, there were 18 phases of sales during which bonds worth Rs 7,994.96 crore have been sold while Rs 7,974.68 crore crore were encashed. The bonds which were not encashed amounting to around Rs 20.28 crore were transferred to the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund.

In 2019-20, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) reported, four national parties -- BJP, Congress, Trinamool Congress and NCP -- and 14 regional parties together garnered Rs 3,441.31 crore through electoral bonds.

According to ADR, 62.92% (Rs 2993.82 crore) of the total income of the four national parties came from donations through electoral bonds. Ruling BJP's income rose by 50.34% to Rs 3,623.28 crore in 2019-20 with the bulk coming from redemption of electoral bonds while three other national parties CPI(M), CPI and BSP did not receive any donation through electoral bonds.

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