Vedanta, Airtel, Essel among top funders of Indian political parties in last 5 yrs, data shows

RPSG Ventures

14/03/2024 17:08

NEW DELHI, March 14 (Reuters) - Some of India's biggest
companies, including Vedanta Ltd  VDAN.NS , Bharti Airtel
 BRTI.NS , RPSG Group and Essel Mining were among the country's
top political funders over the last five years under a
now-scrapped opaque political funding system, official data
showed on Thursday.    
    The information was made public by the Election Commission
of India following an order on Monday from the country's top
court.    
    The political funding mechanism introduced in 2017 allowed
companies and individuals to donate unlimited amounts
anonymously to political parties. 
    The funding system, called Electoral Bonds, was challenged
by opposition lawmakers and a civil society group on the grounds
that it hindered the public's right to know who had given money
to political parties. The Supreme Court banned Electoral Bonds
last month, calling them "unconstitutional".
    Under the system, a person or company could buy bonds from
government-owned State Bank of India  SBI.NS  and donate them to
a political party.    
    Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party was
the largest beneficiary of these bonds, which were donations,
garnering 55% of the bonds worth 120 billion rupees ($1.45
billion) donated between January 2018 and January 2024 by people
and companies.
        
($1 = 82.9200 Indian rupees)

 (Reporting by Bengaluru and New Delhi bureaux; Editing by Susan
Fenton)
 ((Krishn.Kaushik@thomsonreuters.com; +91 8527322283;))