Electoral bonds data: Metal, mining giants focus on home ground Odisha

For Vedanta, All India Congress emerged as the second most donated party at Rs 125 crore, followed by BJD at Rs 40 crore

Two of India’s large metal mining conglomerates, Aditya Birla Group and Vedanta, directed a significant portion of donations given through electoral bonds to Odisha, a mineral rich state which houses their multi-crore projects.

Odisha’s ruling party, Biju Janata Dal (BJD), got Rs 775.5 crore through sales of electoral bonds, between April 2019 and February 2024. And most of these donors are companies with interest in mining, iron, aluminium and steel.

The two conglomerates, Aditya Birla Group and Vedanta, donated Rs 304 crore to BJD. And in it, Aditya Birla Group’s share was significant at Rs 264 crore.

An email query sent to both firms remained unanswered at the time of writing this story.

In total, Anil Agarwal-promoted Vedanta Ltd donated around Rs 400 crore through electoral bonds, making it one of the top-10 donors. Ruling party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) received the highest share of this, at Rs 230 crore.

Aditya Birla Group’s listed and unlisted entities combined made Rs 437 crore worth of electoral bonds donations. Of this, BJD received Rs 264 crore, the maximum share.

Vedanta also gave Rs 125 crore to Congress, followed by BJD at Rs 40 crore.

The KM Birla Group made its donations through listed entities UltraTech Cement, unlisted entity Essel Mining and Industries and Utkal Aluminium International, which is a subsidiary of listed entity Hindalco Industries.

Hindalco operates a 1.5 million tonne per annum (MTPA) alumina Refinery at Utkal in Odisha and related bauxite mines.

Essel Mining has operations in the states of Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand and operates a 1 MTPA iron ore beneficiation plant and a 1 MTPA iron ore pelletisation plant in Odisha.

ABG Group’s UltraTech Cement, which is headquartered in Mumbai, also donated Rs 3 crore to Maharashtra’s regional party Shiv Sena.

Anil Agarwal’s conglomerate made all of its donations through its listed entity Vedanta Ltd. It was not immediately clear whether Vedanta Electricals was associated with Agarwal and hence has been excluded from this data.

Vedanta’s aluminium capacity is concentrated in Odisha, with a refinery and captive power plant at Lanjigarh and a smelter and captive power plants at Jharsuguda both situated in the same state.

Vedanta also donated Rs 5 crore to Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, another mineral-rich state. Vedanta operates an integrated steel plant in Bokaro, Jharkhand, with a design capacity of 2.5 million tonne per annum (MTPA).