Watch | Electoral bonds: Who were the biggest donors?

Overall, donors acquired electoral bonds worth over ₹12,155 crores during this period, with political parties encashing over ₹12,769 crores in the same duration

On March 15th, the Election Commission of India published electoral bonds data it received from State Bank of India .

This comes following a directive from the Supreme Court of India, underscoring the significance of transparency in electoral funding.

Exactly a month ago, the Supreme Court declared the electoral bonds scheme as unconstitutional. Their reasoning was that funding to political parties, especially from corporates, cannot be anonymous.

The State Bank of India provided this data to the ECI on March 12th, as per the directive of the Supreme Court, which mandated its publication on the ECI’s website by March 15th.

The data furnished by the SBI is divided into two sets. 

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The first set outlines the date of purchase, purchaser’s name, and denomination of each electoral bond bought between April 1st, 2019, and February 15th, 2024. A total of 22,217 bonds were procured during this period.