After Supreme Court's prod, the State Bank of India made the finer details on electoral bonds public, which now has donor details to parties that redeemed the bonds, including the unique alphanumeric codes that link donors to beneficiaries.
As per the data, BJP was the biggest beneficiary of electoral bonds with donations worth over Rs 6,000 crore in the last four years of the scheme. Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering, which won several contracts for infrastructure projects, donated Rs 584 crore to the BJP.
Infrastructure, energy sectors top donors
BJP
BJP redeemed Rs 584 crore from Megha Engineering and its associate company Western UP Power Transmission Company. Megha funded BJP to the tune of Rs 449 crore and Western UP Power Transmission gave Rs 80 crore. The group is also the top donor for Congress.
Megha lists marquee projects such as the Zojila Tunnel, the Char Dham Tunnel, and Maharashtra Samruddhi Marg as those it is associated with.
The Western UP Power Transmission Company is at present executing a high-value project. The scope of the project involves establishing a transmission system in the state that includes construction of 765 KV and 400 KV transmission lines.
Congress
Vedanta was the biggest donor of electoral bonds for the Congress. Congress encashed ₹1,422 crore in total, of which Vedanta contributed ₹125 crore, followed by ₹110 crore from Western UP Power Transmission Company, a subsidiary of MEIL, and ₹91.6 crore from MKJ Enterprises. Vedanta's Balco is located in Chhattisgarh, a state that was led by the Congress till recently.
Trinamool
Future Gaming, owned by Lottery King Santiago Martin, was the top donor for Mamata Banerjee's party at Rs 542 crore. The maximum chunk of that came last year, Rs 158 crore. Future Gaming bought bonds of up to Rs 1,368 crore in all. Apart from Trinamool, the Coimbatore-based firm gave Rs 503 crore to Tamil Nadu's ruling party DMK, nearly Rs 160 crore to Andhra Pradesh's YSR Congress Party. Interestingly, two parties of Sikkim, one of the few states where lottery is legal, together got less than Rs 10 crore from the firm,
After Future, TMC received the most donations from Kolkata-based Haldia Energy, which is helmed by Sanjiv Goenka. The firm donated Rs 281 crore. The largest amount it donated was last year, Rs 95 crore. The third biggest donor to TMC is Kolkata-based Dhariwal Infrastructure, making donations worth Rs 90 crore. Dhariwal Infrastructure limited - Chandrapur, a 2 X 300 MW coal based thermal power plant, located in Maharashtra is a wholly owned subsidiary of CESC Limited, flagship power utility of RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group of companies.
MKJ Enterprises, which runs stainless steel business in India, paid TMC Rs 45.9 crore in 2021, 2022 and 2023. It is linked to Kolkata industrialist Mahendra K. Jalan, which spent a total of Rs 617 crore on electoral bonds.