Mumbai: Electoral bonds have been the talk of the country since the Supreme Court ruled it as unconstitutional and scrapped it last month.
Introduced by the BJP in 2018, these bonds had emerged as the major source of funding for political parties with the saffron party gaining the most through such corporate donations.
According to data released by Election Commission of India on Thursday, BJP encashed Rs 6,060 crore over five years through the electoral bonds scheme. It was the most by any party, while Congress managed to garner Rs 1,422 crore.
Congress has demanded a high-level probe by the Supreme Court into BJP’s bank accounts, claiming that the party got 50 per cent of the money received through these bonds.
On Friday, Rahul Gandhi said that electoral bonds were part of the biggest extortion racket in the world.
“Electoral bonds were the biggest extortion racket in the world. Funds for splitting political parties and toppling Opposition governments came from electoral bonds,” the Congress leader said at a rally in Thane.
The Congress also alleged a nexus between the funding to BJP bank accounts and central agencies’ probe and actions against entities which issued remittances to the BJP accounts via electoral bonds.
At least 15 of the top 30 companies that donated to the parties through the electoral bonds scheme were investigated by the central agencies.
The State Bank of India (SBI) was forced to submit electoral bonds data to EC following Supreme Court’s order and prod for delaying.
On Friday, the top court issued notice to SBI for not releasing the bond numbers.
