Never accepted any electoral bonds funding; always opposed it: CPI(M)

"The fact is that the CPI(M) has refused to accept electoral bonds on principle. That is why it did not even open a designated State Bank of India account," the party said

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Friday said it has not accepted any funding through electoral bonds and it never opened a designated SBI account as required to accept the bonds.

"Reports have appeared in some sections of the media that the CPI(M) has received various amounts as contributions through electoral bonds," the CPI(M) said in a statement.

"The party wishes to clarify that these reports are false and baseless. The fact is that the CPI(M) has refused to accept electoral bonds on principle. That is why it did not even open a designated State Bank of India account as required by the law to accept electoral bonds," it said.

"The CPI(M) had appealed to the Supreme Court against the electoral bonds scheme because of this basic opposition," it added in the statement.

In a landmark verdict just months ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Supreme Court on Thursday scrapped the Centre's electoral bonds scheme of anonymous political funding, calling it "unconstitutional" and ordering disclosure of the bond's donors, amount and recipients by March 13.

Introduced in January 2018, 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 these for money.