During the election season, the parties accept donations worth thousands of crores of rupees from various corporate groups in different ways. The Supreme Court had declared the money, which was accepted in the form of electoral bonds, illegal.
This historic verdict was delivered by a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court on February 15, 2024. Ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, it was a blow to electoral politics.
The 2017 Finance Bill was amended by the Modi government. Then in 2018, the political party launched a campaign to raise money by justifying these electoral bonds. What electoral bonds are is an ignorant matter for the common man.
In general, it can be said that a capitalist group or individual willingly helps a political party with money during elections. Let’s say you want to donate to a political party. Then by buying these electoral bonds, it will be able to provide that money to the particular political party.
These bonds can vary from Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 1 lakh, Rs 1 crore, etc. If these parties buy these bonds from a branch of the State Bank of India and hand it over to a political party, then when these parties deposit the bonds in their bank accounts, then the same amount of money is deposited in their accounts.
What is regrettable is that the identity of who bought these bonds from any branch of SBI is kept secret. As a result, who has given how much money to which political party is limited to the giver and the political party that takes the money.
This is how various corporate groups have been depositing crores of rupees to political parties. As a result, that institution or individual took advantage of it in the post-election period and made a profit.
Political parties registered under the People’s Representatives Act of 1951 are eligible for contributions through these electoral bonds. But those who give that money through bonds never go to give money to a weak political party.