The Hindu has analysed data submitted by a petitioner in the electoral bonds case, Association of Democratic Rights (ADR). This counters government contention that electoral bonds have cut down on ‘unknown sources’ of income.
A Constitution bench of the Supreme Court is hearing the case on electoral bonds, against which multiple petitions have been filed. The arguments are ongoing.
Arguing for the Union government, solicitor general Tushar Mehta spoke on the need for electoral bonds, in order to make sure that unknown sources of income to political parties are minimised. His case on day two of the hearing in the Supreme Court included a read-out from the Association of Democratic Reforms to speak of unknown donors from years before.
The Hindu, calculating data on the source of political funding, has found that numbers are to the contrary. The source of funds from unknown sources to national parties in FY2015-FY2017, rose from 66% to 72% (nearly three-fourths) in FY2019-FY2022 period.
Electoral bonds were introduced in 2018.
The BJP saw an increase from 58% being the share of unknown sources of income to total income to 68% in the 2019-2022 period, that is, after electoral bonds were introduced.
The Congress’s share (of unknown sources as a fraction of total income) remained around 80% in the same period.
The share of electoral bonds comprised 81% of the unknown funding to national parties in the period after they were introduced.
Known and unknown sources as per ADR
Unknown sources of income, as classified by election watchdog ADR, a petitioner in the case, is defined as income declared in the Annual Audit reports but without giving the source of income. This is for donations below Rs 20,000. Such unknown sources include ‘Donations via Electoral Bonds’, ‘sale of coupons’, ‘relief fund’, ‘miscellaneous income’, ‘voluntary contributions’, ‘contribution from meetings/ morchas’ etc.
Political parties are not required to reveal the name of individuals or organisations giving less than Rs 20,000.
The known sources are defined as donations above Rs 20,000. These are further classified by ADR into two types of incomes, one, whose donor details are submitted by parties to the Election Commission of India and another which comprise income through sales of movable and immovable assets.
Partywise share of electoral bonds
In all, according to ADR data used in this analysis by The Hindu, BJP secured Rs 5, 721 crore between FY2018 and FY2022 through electoral bonds. This is 57% of all the electoral bonds issued till then.
Congress got Rs 952 crore. That is 10.4% of the bonds. Trinamool Congress received Rs 768 crore, BJD Rs 622 crore, DMK 432 crore, BRS Rs 384 crore and YSRCP Rs 330 crore.
The CPI(M) does not accept electoral bonds and is a petitioner in the case contesting the constitutionality of electoral bonds, the only political party so far, to go to court on this, so far.
Hearings in the case in the chief justice’s court began on October 31, 2023. The court began specifically hearing four petitions moved by the Association for Democratic Reforms, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Congress leader Jaya Thakur, and public interest litigation by one Spandan Biswal. The petitioners urged the court to declare political parties as public offices to bring them under the ambit of the Right to Information Act and to compel them to disclose their income and expenditure. They also challenged the constitutional validity of the scheme.