Election Funding

Additional funds were deposited into personal accounts linked to Nagendra's associates, including Punith Kumar and Kali Harish, for personal expenses such as flight bookings, vehicle maintenance

The crowds are psyched. The campaign donations are flooding in. Volunteers are showing up at field offices in droves. After a mostly smooth two-week campaign startup, Vice President Kamala Harris is headed into a crucial week that includes her most critical decision yet choosing a running mate while grappling with how to keep that early political momentum alive. Harris, a former prosecutor known for being deliberative, effectively has a deadline of Tuesday to select who will be her No. 2 from a list that has been whittled down to four governors, a senator and a Cabinet official who was also one of her 2020 foes. It's a high-pressure decision that usually spans several months, but in this case is compressed into a matter of just weeks. From there, Harris and her running mate will launch into an aggressive, seven-state battleground tour that begins in Philadelphia on Tuesday and winds through Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. Her early rallies have .

BJP encashed electoral bonds totaling Rs 6,986.5 crore; Congress redeemed a total of Rs 1,334.35 crore through electoral bonds

22,217 electoral bonds were bought from 2019-24, of which 22,030 were redeemed, according to SBI

Regional parties received over Rs 5,221 crore in donations through electoral bonds between April 2019 and January 2024 which was Rs 839 crore less than the Rs 6,060.51 crore raised by the BJP alone in the period under review. According to the data of the electoral bonds published by the Election Commission, two national parties - the Congress and the AAP - have raised Rs 1,421.86 crore and Rs 65.45 crore respectively in the period under review. The other national parties - the BSP, the CPI(M) and the NPP - did not receive any funds through electoral bonds. Among the regional parties, the Trinamool Congress alone raised Rs 1,609.53 crore, which was 30 per cent of the total donations received by 22 regional parties who got funds through electoral bonds. The Bharat Rashtra Samithi raised Rs 1,214.70 crore through electoral bonds, the BJD got Rs 775.50 crore, the DMK Rs 639 crore, the YSRCP Rs 337 crore, the TDP Rs 218.88 crore and the Shiv Sena raised 159.38 crore. The RJD raised Rs

While the Congress party has been allowed to operate its account, the ITAT has put a lien of Rs 115 crore on its accounts. It has been allowed to spend only from the remainder

Before the amendment the Act required a company to disclose any amount contributed to any political party along with the particulars of the amount donated and the name of the receiving party

Orders EC to disclose donors, amount & recipients by March 13

A day earlier, the Defence Ministry filed an application in the SC, requesting the top court to recall its April 4 order that had fixed May 14 as the election date for the Punjab Assembly

Ahead of assembly elections in five states, the government on Thursday approved the issuance of the 19th tranche of electoral bonds, which will be open for sale from January 1 to 10. Electoral bonds have been pitched as an alternative to cash donations made to political parties as part of efforts to bring transparency in political funding. However, Opposition parties have been raising concerns about alleged opaqueness in funding through such bonds. "State Bank of India (SBI), in the XIX Phase of sale, has been authorised to issue and encash Electoral Bonds through its 29 Authorized Branches with effect from January 1 to January 10, 2022," the finance ministry said in a statement. The 29 specified SBI branches are in cities, such as Lucknow, Shimla, Dehradun Kolkata, Guwahati, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Patna, New Delhi, Chandigarh, Srinagar, Gandhinagar, Bhopal, Raipur, and Mumbai. Assembly elections for 5 states-- Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Goa-- ar

What is causing concern is non-transparent way of funding through corporate donations, says ex CEC Krishnamurthy said

Before the change approved last week, foreign funds received by a political party before September 26, 2010, when the FCRA was enacted, were open to scrutiny

ADR demands political parties only accept donations through digital payments