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Bharti Airtel, subsidiary donated Rs 234 cr to BJP via electoral bonds

Bharti Airtel donated nearly Rs 197.5 crore to BJP, Rs 50 lakh to J&K National Conference, and Rs 10 lakh to Rashtriya Janata Dal

Between 2012 and 2017, Bharti Airtel bought BWA spectrum from Qualcomm, Aircel and Tikona Digital who were the second players in different circles.

Press Trust of India New Delhi

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Bharti Airtel and its subsidiary Bharti Telemedia bought around Rs 235 crore of electoral bonds and donated all but about Rs 1 crore to the ruling BJP, according to data released by the Election Commission.

Bharti Airtel donated nearly Rs 197.5 crore to BJP, Rs 50 lakh to J&K National Conference, and Rs 10 lakh to Rashtriya Janata Dal.

Bharti Telemedia, which is a subsidiary of the Sunil Mittal-led telecom firm Bharti Airtel, donated bonds worth Rs 37 crore to BJP, the data showed.

In all, the two Bharti Group entities donated about Rs 234 crore to BJP, via electoral bonds.

 

A mail sent to Bharti Airtel for comments did not elicit a response.

ALSO READ: Electoral bonds data: Here's how much the BJP, Congress and TMC received

Meanwhile, in a sharp contrast to big corporate houses that gave large sums to political parties, IT companies in India donated just around Rs 15 crore to various political parties through electoral bonds, as per the data.

In the IT pack, Cyient contributed the most - donating Rs 10 crore to BJP, while Zensar Technologies contributed Rs 3 crore to the party, as per electoral bond data.

The Election Commission made public a fresh data set of electoral bonds, including their alpha-numeric numbers that helps match their purchasers with the political parties that received the funds.

BJP remained a major beneficiary of electoral bonds purchased by big corporate groups like Vedanta, Bharti Airtel, Muthoot, Baja Auto, Jindal group and TVS Motor, the data showed.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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First Published: Mar 22 2024 | 7:03 PM IST

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