Breaking! Election Commission releases electoral bonds data as ordered by SC

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has complied with the directives of the Hon’ble Supreme Court, as per its orders dated February 15 and March 11, in the matter of WPC NO.880 of 2017. In line with these instructions, the State Bank of India (SBI) furnished the data concerning electoral bonds to the ECI on March 12, 2024.

Today, the Election Commission of India has made the electoral bonds data available on its website, following the "as is where is basis" principle based on the information provided by SBI. The data can be accessed at the URL: https://www.eci.gov.in/candidate-politicalparty.

The Election Commission of India has today uploaded the data on electoral bonds on its website as received from SBI on “as is where is basis”. The data as received from SBI can be accessed at this URL: https://t.co/zFF5HFI1aj pic.twitter.com/oA6K7CxerP

— ANI (@ANI) March 14, 2024

In a statement released on Thursday, the Election Commission of India reiterated its commitment to transparency and disclosure, a stance consistently advocated throughout the legal proceedings before the Hon’ble Supreme Court.

e-bonds1 by sagar.dwivedi on Scribd

The data concerns the acquisition of bonds in three different denominations - ₹ 1 lakh, ₹ 10 lakh, and ₹ 1 crore - spanning from April 12, 2019. It discloses purchases made by both companies and individuals.

Electoral bonds data | Donors to political parties through electoral bonds include Finolex Cables Ltd, Lakshmi Niwas Mittal, Edelweiss Housing Finance Ltd, GHCL Ltd, Jindal Poly Films Limited, ITC Limited, Vedanta Limited

— ANI (@ANI) March 14, 2024

On the Election Commission's (EC) website, there are two distinct lists available. The first list comprises companies that have procured electoral bonds, detailing the denominations and corresponding dates of purchase. The second list contains the names of political parties, along with the denominations of bonds and the dates on which they were cashed. However, there is no mechanism provided to correlate these lists and discern which company contributed to which political party.