The Bharatiya Janata Party received 76% of the total electoral bonds sold in 2019-’20 financial year, reported NDTV, citing data it access...
The Bharatiya Janata Party received 76% of the total electoral bonds sold in 2019-’20 financial year, reported NDTV, citing data it accessed from the Election Commission.
According to the report, the BJP received electoral bonds worth Rs 2,555 crore of the total Rs 3,355 crore worth sold in that year. This was a 75% jump from the Rs 1,450 crore worth of electoral bonds that the BJP had received in 2018-’19.
Electoral bonds are monetary instruments that citizens or corporate groups can buy from a bank and give to a political party, which is then free to redeem them for money. Former Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced this scheme in his Budget speech in 2017, claiming the government wanted to clean up political funding and make it a transparent process.
However, the entire process is anonymous since no one is required to declare their purchase of these bonds and political parties do not need to declare the source of the money. The money is unlikely to be “black” since it has to be given by cheque, the government had reasoned.
These bonds are issued four times every year in January, April, July and October. Last year, they were issued only in January and October.
In 2019-’20, the electoral bonds received by the Congress...
