Following a Supreme Court order, The Election Commission of India released data on electoral bonds on Thursday, 14 March.
The data uploaded by the poll panel revealed details about the purchase of the now-scrapped electoral bonds of denominations ranging between Rs 1,000 to Rs 1 Crore since 12 April 2019.
According to the data, 1277 entities bought electoral bonds worth Rs 12,155.5 during the five year period.
The State Bank of India (SBI) told the Supreme Court that a total of 22,217 electoral bonds were purchased by political parties between 1 April 2019 and 15 February this year, out of which 22,030 were redeemed.
Here are the top 10 donors to political parties:
Future Gaming and Hotel Services PR - Rs 1,368 crore
Megha Engineering & Infrastructures Ltd: Rs 966 crore
Qwik Supply Chain Pvt Ltd - Rs 410 crore
Vedanta Ltd: Rs 400 crore
Haldia Energy: Rs 377 crore
Essel Mining & Industries Ltd - Rs 224 crore
Wester UP Power Transmission Company Limited: Rs 220 Crore
Bharti Airtel Limited: Rs 198 crore
Keventer Foodpark Infra Limited: Rs 195 crore
Madanlal Ltd: Rs 185.5 crore
While Future Gaming is owned by Santiago Martin, a lottery king from South India, Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering, a company which specialises in building dams and handling hydrocarbon projects, is owned by PV Krishna Reddy and PP Reddy.
Coimbatore-based Future Gaming, which reports a turnover of close to Rs 7,000 crore, has been under investigation for money laundering by the Enforcement Bureau since 2022.
Vedanta Limited, is the fourth in the list and is one of the biggest mining conglomerates in the world is promoted by Anil Agarwal.
The Megha group (MEIL) has also won several government projects, including the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project in Telangana. The company is also said to be close to K Chandrasekhar Rao-led Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS).
Meanwhile, Qwik Supply Chain Private Limited is a Mumbai-based company. The company has two directors, one of whom is Tapas Mitra. According to his Linkedln profile, Mitra is the head of accounts at Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries Limited.
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