-The Indian Express It is unclear why the government initially assured the RBI that RBI "alone" will issue Electoral Bonds as it could not do so under Section 31(3) of RBI Act. On Tuesday, replying to a question in Rajya Sabha raised by DMK’s Tiruchi Siva about what the Reserve Bank’s “indirect” approval to the issuance of Electoral Bonds meant, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said: “RBI, being a stakeholder, was involved in...
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BJP wanted Electoral Bonds without serial numbers -Priscilla Jebaraj
-The Hindu The party recommended that Electoral Bonds should be issued without any serial number or identification marks. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had pitched for greater anonymity for donors of Electoral Bonds, according to a letter sent by party general secretary Bhupendra Yadav to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in August 2017 when the scheme was being drafted. This letter was obtained by activist Lokesh Batra through a Right to Information application. The...
More »The opacity around Electoral Bonds -Trilochan Sastry
-The Hindu If big money entirely funds elections in a secretive way, democracy as we know it will not exist The recent disclosures that the Election Commission (EC) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had expressed reservations about the Electoral Bonds scheme highlight the importance of this issue. In 2017, the then RBI Governor wrote to the then Finance Minister that “allowing any entity other than the central bank to issue...
More »Rich love Electoral Bonds: More than 91% donations over Rs 1 crore each -Udit Misra
-The Indian Express The RTI documents also show that over the 12 phases, just four cities accounted for 83 per cent of all Electoral Bonds by value. Electoral Bonds with denomination of Rs 1 crore accounted for more than 91 per cent of the Rs 5,896 crore raised in the first eleven of the total twelve phases over which bonds were sold by select branches of the State Bank of India. ...
More »Revealed: River of anonymous election cash that flowed to Calcutta -Anita Joshua
-The Telegraph Figures in May take the total amount of money invested in this opaque source of funding since January to Rs 4,794 crore Electoral Bonds accounting for the maximum amount of political donations in India in May were sold in Calcutta, according to information accessed by a citizen through the Right to Information route. Of the bonds worth Rs 822 crore that were sold in select outlets of the State Bank of...
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