Electoral Bonds: The Biggest Scam of Independent India (Part-3)

 Hello there. Welcome to the final part of the Electoral Bonds. In the last part, we discussed how the government of India in 2017 brought this new concept of Electoral Bonds. Please read about what electoral bonds mean.

RECAP: Let's focus on the arguments given by the RBI, Election Commission.

• The scheme would violate the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002.
• RBI said that a commercial bank like SBI shouldn't issue this bond. It proposed to issue these bonds by the RBI itself which would prevent money laundering.
  
  
• Electoral bonds would reduce transparency in the political funding. 

2nd January 2018- This scheme was implemented.

While everyone was distracted by this issue the Modi Government passed a law without any debate.

This law was about the foreign funding of the political parties.

Why?

In 2014, BJP and Congress were found guilty by the Delhi High Court.  because between 2002 to 2014 they took money from a foreign company, London's Mining Group. But in 2018 by bringing this law BJP evaded the Court. (Just a side note)

 

Let's continue the story 

Two NGOs  ADR(Association for Democratic Reforms) and Common Cause along with the Communist Party of India(Marxist), CPIM, went to the Supreme Court to oppose this scheme. On 12th April 2019 Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi said that he would pass a temporary order, and if a political party wants to share their donor list, then they can do it on their respective websites.

IT WAS NOT NECESSARY TO SHARE IT WITH SUPREME COURT.

These three organizations approached the Supreme Court several times for urgent hearings.

2019, 2020,2021,2022. But the Supreme Court refused to hear them.

16th October 2023, finally the Supreme Court agreed to hear it. Justice DY Chandrachud was heading the bench and along with five other judges started the Court hearings.

Finally, this bench gave their order on 15th February 2024.

'THE ELECTORAL BONDS SCHEME WAS UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND IT MUST BE REMOVED'

because it violates the Right to Freedom as every voter has the right to know information about the funding of the political party.

The Supreme Court ordered SBI to give the list to ECI and then ECI will make this information public before 6th March 2024. But SBI asked for another three months (basically after the election). Supreme Court refused and gave 6 more days to give the information.  SC also ordered ECI to make the information public on 14th March 2024. 

SBI released two documents. Have a look.

(Not exact documents)

The first document shows which company has purchased the bonds and of which denominations.

The second document shows which political parties have received the denominations.

But there were two problems.

1. The data released by SBI was dated from April 2019 to February 2024. This scheme was implemented in January 2018. So the data for 1 year was missing.

2. There were two documents- One which said which company purchased the bond on which date and with how many denominations other said which political party received them.

But we still don't know which company donated to which political party, that key is used to merge documents. It is called UAC(Unique Alphanumeric Code).

Wait 6 years ago, the Finance Minister and Finance Secretary said that there is no way to match these two documents. But wait there is a twist here

A journalist purchased an electoral bond and tried to investigate it. On the top right corner of the bond, a code can be seen by passing it through UV light radiation. (Done in Delhi's Forensic Lab).

Source: Quint

When asked about it SBI said that it is just a security feature. Nevertheless, SC was forced to give these UACs.

 Turns out, the Finance Minister, Finance Secretary, and SBI were all proven wrong when that security feature code was actually the key to merging these two documents. Plus now we also have the 2018-2019 data.

The data shows that from 2018 to 2024, 16,000 crores worth of electoral bonds were purchased.

Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) stands first as they received 8500 crores.

Second was the Indian National Congress(INC) which received 1950 crores 

And third, the Trinamool Congress which received 1707 crores.

  

then Bharat Rashtra Samiti(BRS), Biju Janata Dal(BJD), Telugu Desam Party(TDP), Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam(DMK), Aam Aadmi Party(AAP), RJD, JD(U), ADMK, Shiv Sena, NCP, SP, SAD, YSRCP, JD(S) and countless other parties.

JD(U)'s case was just a comic scene. When asked from whom they got the electoral bonds, they said it was lying down in front of their headquarters.

I'm not going inside the donor's list in detail. I will attach a link to the companies donated to which political parties.

https://www.thehindu.com/data/electoral-bond-full-data-complete-list-of-donors-parties-and-unique-numbers/article67976056.ece

What's more suspicious is that the companies that donated were going in losses but they still donated huge sums of money. These companies were booked for a lot of money laundering and have corruption cases.

DIRTY GAME

The second largest donor, Megha Engineering is also booked for corruption cases before 2020. After 2020(that is, when they donated to the BJP) the case filed by the CBI was mysteriously closed.

Why does this pattern follow?

BJP has exploited the CBI and ED(Enforcement Directorate) and if you donate money to the BJP then your case will be closed.

What's more sad is that mainstream media is not covering this. There is just an anchor who is sitting in a studio and just shouting for no reason (iykyk).

Controlling democratic institutions for political purposes is wrong and must stop at any cause.

But what about the Black Money. Demonetization did away with all black money right. Sadly not, Black Money is still revolving around our politics.

SOLUTION: This is a very complex issue and it's difficult to bring in an ideal solution. A solution that involves the eradication of black money and ensuring transparency. But as the citizens of this country, we can do one thing.

Support any party you want. When you cast your vote check the performances of each party and vote for them. But after you vote for them be a third person for the next five years.

What I mean is to have this mindset.

BJP CONGRESS TMC AAP DMK SP SHIVSENA NCP ADMK JDU BJD YSRCP ETC

ALL THESE PARTIES CANNOT BE TRUSTED. ALL PARTIES ARE CORRUPT AND AS THE CITIZEN OF THIS COUNTRY WE MUST CALL THAT PARTY OUT EVEN IF WE SUPPORT THEM.

 

It's our money that is being played by the political party. So when you go for voting this time just make sure you elect your candidate based on performance. Ask questions when facilities are not provided.

Thank you for reading this post. It took a lot of time to research this and we thank our readers for taking the time and read it. 

I would really like to thank Soch by Mohak Mangal, Nitish Rajput, Abhi and Niyu, The Deshbhakt and Think School 

as I used their videos for my research.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NTh5l9HJBY- Think School

https://youtu.be/I7VQdCBN3wE?si=kclGCUsFFv5i00eW- The Deshbhakt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvCr6lgI_XY- Abhi and Niyu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om-NseIZTAY&t=9s- Nitish Rajput

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y860YJVuQOo&t=2340s- Mohak Mangal

Thank you so much for reading and will see you with another blog.

Bye