EC uploads electoral bond data, company under ED scanner among top donors

Tribune News Service

Animesh Singh

New Delhi, March 14

Future Gaming and Hotel Services Private Ltd, a lesser-known firm probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), bought electoral bonds worth over Rs 1,350 crore under two different sets of companies, showed the data uploaded by the Election Commission on its website a day before the Supreme Court-fixed March 15 deadline.

Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Ltd, which has bagged contracts of several large infrastructure projects, bought bonds worth Rs 966 crore, according to the data shared with the EC by the State Bank of India, the authorised seller of electoral bonds, on March 12.

The top 10 donors contributed around Rs 4,000 crore through the bonds. Among the known corporates, Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta Ltd bought Rs 398 crore worth of bonds while Sunil Bharti Mittal’s three companies coughed up an amount of Rs 246 crore. Steel magnate Lakshmi Niwas Mittal bought Rs 35 crore worth of bonds in his individual capacity.

22,217 bonds purchased between April 1, 2019, and Feb 15, 2024

22,030 redeemed by parties

The other known buyers included SpiceJet, IndiGo, Grasim Industries, Piramal Enterprises, Torrent Power, Bharti Airtel, DLF Commercial Developers, Apollo Tyres, Edelweiss, PVR, Keventer, Sula Wines, Welspun, Sun Pharma, Vardhman Textiles, Jindal Group, Phillips Carbon Black Limited, CEAT Tyres, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, ITC, Kaypee Enterprises, Cipla and UltraTech Cement. MRF, JK Cement, Maruti Suzuki, Force Motors, Muthoot Finance, Bajaj Finance Ltd, Avon Cycles, Dempo Industries and Essel Mining also feature in the list.

The two-part data relates to the purchase of bonds by companies and individuals of mainly three denominations of Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore, dating from April 12, 2019, to January 11, 2024. In the second part, it contains details of bonds encashed by major political parties during the same period. However, the data does not provide any correlation as to which company or individual donated funds to which political party.

While the list of companies that purchased the bonds comprises the who’s who of India’s corporate world, the bulk of purchases are in the name of Future Gaming and Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Ltd. Megha Engineering is headed by PP Reddy and PV Krishna Reddy, considered close to former Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao. The company has handled major projects like the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project in Telangana, Char Dham Railway Tunnel Project and Zojila Tunnel Project, to name a few.

Yet another company in the list, Qwik Supply Chain Pvt Ltd, donated around Rs 410 crore. Incidentally, its director Tapas Mitra (as per details mentioned in Ministry of Corporate Affairs’ data DIN 05353855) is also reportedly associated with eight companies bearing the Reliance name. The ED had in September 2023 filed a chargesheet against Future Gaming and Hotel Services Private Limited and 15 other companies before a special PMLA court in Kolkata in a PMLA case. The accused were found engaged in selling of lotteries organised by the states of Sikkim and Nagaland across the country, including West Bengal.

In the data containing the names of political parties that encashed electoral bonds, the BJP's name is mentioned 8,633 times and that of the Congress 3,146 times. Meanwhile, Amitabh Dubey, in charge of research and monitoring in the Congress' communication department, stated on X, “The donors file has 18,871 entries, the recipients file has 20,421 entries. Why the discrepancy?”

Parties that got funds

The recipients of funds through electoral bonds include BJP, Congress, AIADMK, BRS, Shiv Sena, TDP, YSR Congress, DMK, JD(S), NCP, TMC, JD(U), RJD, AAP, SP, National Conference, BJD, Goa Forward Party, Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, Sikkim Krantikari Morcha, JMM, Sikkim Democratic Front and Jana Sena Party

BJP arm-twisted firms to donate

Was it blackmail, extortion, loot and coercion to get more donations? A fresh probe shows 15 more companies donated to BJP after ED, CBI, IT raids, making it a total of 45 firms paying BJP nearly Rs 400 crore. — Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress president

(With PTI inputs)

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