Vast majority of parties received no donations via electoral bonds

While several political parties received donations worth crores of rupees via electoral bonds, there is a vast majority which did not get any money through the now-scraped scheme for political funding.

Over 500 recognised and unrecognised political parties had shared details on electoral bonds in sealed covers to the Supreme Court.

The data was submitted through the Election Commission and was put in public domain by the poll panel on Sunday.

Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party, which is a recognised national party, has told the Election Commission that it did not receive any funding through electoral bonds since the inception of the scheme.

The National People's Party, which rules Meghalaya, is another national party which received no donations through electoral bonds.

National Conference, a recognised state party in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, has disclosed receiving Rs 50 lakh from the Bharti group through electoral bonds.

The Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) disclosed it received Rs 50 lakh via electoral bonds from Alambic Pharma.

Left parties, including CPI, CPI-M, All-India Forward Bloc and CPI-ML did not receive any electoral bond funding. They said as a matter of principle they refused donations through this route.

Some of the registered, unrecognised parties made their submission in hand-written notes on plain paper declaring not receiving any funding through poll bonds.

Several of the parties which are active in states, such as Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, AIMIM, IAUDF, Zoram People's Movement, Asom Gana Parishad, Bodoland People's Front, Kerala Congress (Mani), late Vijayakanth's DMDK, INLD, Tamil Maanila Congress did not receive donations through poll bonds.

On the other hand, some other smaller regional players such as the Goa Forward Party and MGP received electoral bonds worth Rs 36 lakh and Rs 55 lakh respectively.

According to an earlier report compiled by NGO Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), electoral bonds worth Rs 16,518 crore were sold from March 2018 to January 2024.