Electoral Bonds Are Illegal Now. And BJP Received 55% of Them in Last 5 Years

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) received nearly 55%, or Rs 6,564 crore, of the total number of electoral bonds (around Rs 12,000 crore) sold from 2017-2018 to 2022-2023.

Meanwhile, Congress received just 9.5% of all bonds sold in the five-year period at Rs 1,135 crore. The Trinamool Congress has received Rs 1,096 crore from electoral bonds in this same time period.

The Supreme Court on February 15 said that the electoral bond scheme – brought in by the Narendra Modi government in 2017 – is unconstitutional and violates the right to information and Article 19(1)(a). However, the court took years to hear the petitions filed in 2017 and had earlier refused to stay this scheme, meaning that as recently as January this year, hundreds of crores worth of electoral bonds were sold by the State Bank of India.

So who benefitted from this scheme, and from the delayed decision from the court?

In total, including the latest tranche, Rs 16,518.11 crore electoral bonds have been sold by the State Bank of India so far.

Source: Association for Democratic Reforms

As earlier mentioned, of the total number of electoral bonds worth Rs 12,008 crore sold between 2017-2018 and 2022-2023, the BJP received nearly 55%.

A recent report in pointed out that as much as 54% of the BJP’s total income in the year 2022-23 came from electoral bonds – a whopping Rs 2,120.06 crore. During the six-year period between 2018 and 2023, more than 52% of BJP’s total donations came from electoral bonds worth Rs 5271.9751 crore, according to the Association for Democratic Reforms.

The Congress earned Rs 171 crore from electoral bonds in 2022-23.