Thirty-three companies that recorded losses or no profit over a seven-year period donated a total of Rs 581.7 crore through electoral bonds, of which Rs 434.2 crore was encashed by the Bharatiya Janata Party, an analysis by The Hindu and an independent research team has revealed.

In all, the analysis casts suspicions on the sources of funding of at least 45 companies that bought electoral bonds despite recording losses or no profit between the financial years 2016-’17 and 2022-’23. These 45 companies have been organised into four categories: A, B, C and D.

Companies in Category A and B made significant donations through electoral bonds despite the absence of profits. The net losses of the 33 companies that donated Rs 576.2 crore – Category A – over a seven-year period stood at over Rs 1 lakh crore, with 16 of them, including Bharti Airtel and Piramal Capital and Housing Finance Limited paying zero or negative direct taxes in aggregate, The Hindu reported.

Another six companies – Category B – donated a total of Rs 646 crore, of which Rs 601 crore was encashed by the BJP. These companies bought electoral bonds worth more than their aggregate net profits. They include the Reliance Group-linked Qwik Supply Chain Private Limited (which purchased bonds worth Rs 410 crore) and Kolkata-based industrialist Mahendra K Jalan’s Madanlal Limited (which purchased bonds worth Rs 185.5 crore).

Another three companies – Category C – donated a total of Rs 193.8 crore through electoral bonds, of which Rs 28.3 crore went to the BJP, Rs 91.6 crore to the Congress, Rs 45.9 crore to the Trinamool Congress, Rs 10 crore each to the Bharat Rashtra Samithi and the Biju Janata Dal and Rs 7 crore to the Aam Aadmi Party.

These companies recorded net profits but reported negative direct taxes in aggregate for the financial years 2016-’17 to 2022-’23. These largest of these three donors is Mahendra K Jalan’s MKJ Enterprises Limited, which purchased Rs 192.4 crore worth of bonds.

Lastly, three companies – Category D – that donated a total of Rs 16.4 crore via electoral bonds did not report any data on their profits or the direct taxes that they paid for the seven-year period, suggesting that they are shell companies involved in money laundering, The Hindu reported.

The Supreme Court had on February 15 said that the electoral bonds could lead to quid pro quo arrangements between donors and political parties and struck down the scheme as unconstitutional. The scheme was introduced by the Narendra Modi government in 2018.

The court had directed the State Bank of India to issue details of the political parties that received electoral bonds from April 12, 2019, and submit them to the Election Commission.

Analysis of the data released by the State Bank of India has revealed that Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party received the lion’s share of political funding through the scheme.

Read more analysis on this topic by Project Electoral Bond, a collaborative project involving Scroll, The News Minute, Newslaundry and independent journalists.

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