Information technology (IT) and engineering services companies including Infosys Ltd. , Cyient Ltd. , and Zensar Technologies Ltd. were among the firms that donated to political parties via the now-scrapped electoral bonds scheme, as per the State Bank of India (SBI) data submitted to the Election Commission of India (ECI).
Cyient emerged as the largest donor among the three IT companies that donated via electoral bonds, as per the recent data disclosed by the Election Commission.
Cyient donated Rs 10 crore via the now defunct scheme of electoral funding. The names of the political parties who received funding from Cyient were, however, not found as of yet.
IT bellwether Infosys contributed Rs 1 crore to former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal (Secular) via electoral bonds around the time of Karnataka assembly elections in 2018. In May 2019, Zensar Technologies contributed Rs 3 crore to unidentified political parties through electoral bonds.
Which political party got how much?
As per the data disclosed on Sunday, the BJP received the highest donations through electoral bonds at Rs 6,986.5 crore since they were introduced in 2018, followed by Trinamool Congress (Rs 1,397 crore), Congress (Rs 1,334 crore) and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (Rs 1,322 crore).
Top purchaser of electoral bonds was lottery king Santiago Martin’s Future Gaming and Hotel Services. Future Gaming bought electoral bonds worth Rs 1,368 crore, of which around 37 per cent went to the DMK.
Future Gaming and Hotel Services donated Rs 509 crore to DMK through the now-scrapped electoral funding scheme. The JD(S) received bonds worth Rs 89.75 crore including Rs 50 crore from Megha Engineering. Megha Engineering is the second largest buyer of electoral bonds.
Biju Janata Dal encashed electoral bonds worth Rs 944.50 crore, followed by YSR Congress (Rs 442.80 crore), Telugu Desam Party (Rs 181.35 crore), Samajwadi Party (Rs 14.05 crore), Shiromani Akali Dal (Rs 7.26 crore) and AIADMK (Rs 6.05 crore).