There was a spurt in the sale of electoral bonds just before the recent round of Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana, with Jharkhand coming up next, with bonds worth a total of Rs 231.93 crore sold between October 1, 2019, and October 10, 2019.
According to information provided by the State Bank of India—which is authorised to sell electoral bonds—in response to a query made under the Right to Information Act, during the 12th phase of sale of bonds between October 1 and 10, 2019, a total of 531 bonds were sold, amounting to a total contribution of Rs 231.93 crore to political parties in election season.
The sale of bonds in the 12th phase, just before state elections, at Rs 231.93 crore, was a big jump from the Rs 45 crore worth of bonds, which were sold in the 11th phase in July 2019.
As per SBI's response to the RTI query made by retired commodore Lokesh K. Batra, of the total 531 bonds sold, majority were of the highest denomination of Rs 1 crore. As many as 215 bonds were of Rs 1 crore value each, followed by 154 of Rs 10 lakh each and 152 of Rs 1 lakh each. Only 10 bonds worth Rs 10,000 each were sold, while no bond of Rs 1,000 denomination was sold.
A point of criticism of the electoral bonds scheme is that the sale of bonds of higher denomination shows that they are bought by corporate houses and not the ordinary citizen. The opaqueness in the electoral bonds scheme has been questioned since the identity of the donors is not disclosed. Due to these reasons, it is felt that the manner in which the scheme has functioned so far shows a strengthening of the corporate-political nexus.
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Batra, meanwhile, pointed out that while 29 branches of the SBI were authorised to sell electoral bonds, the entire sale took place at only six main branches.
The Mumbai main branch of the SBI, on expected lines, saw the highest sale of electoral bonds, with bonds worth Rs 81.60 crore getting sold there. The Kolkata main branch witnessed a sale of Rs 41.50 crore worth of bonds, followed by Hyderabad at Rs 40.25 crore and New Delhi at Rs 38.58 crore. The SBI's main branches in Bengaluru and Gandhinagar each witnessed a sale of bonds worth Rs 15 crore.
