First some context.
Over the last 12 years, the ruling BJP government have nearly monopolised all political funding sources by developing the electoral bond schemes. Large scale donations could not longer be done without buying "bonds" from the State Bank of India (which is a public sector bank under the Central Govt's control). While this information about who is buying the bonds for which party is supposedly secure, nobody really believed this as the Center could always access this unformation in a bank controlled by it. So the BJP can know which company or rich individual is financially supporting which party and reward and punish them accordingly in contracts, taxes, investigations etc.
Given this, more than 80% of all electoral funding has gone to the BJP for the past 10 years....an unprecedented amount when you remember that India is not a two party democracy. It has four to five major national parties and over 20 major religional parties that are in power it have significant presence. So BJP has naturally dominated all elections show sheer money power while others have been starved of funds.
That such a scheme is unconstitutional has been ruled by the Supreme court, extremely belatedly in my opinion.
Why was electoral bonds scrapped: Supreme Court order explained in 5 points
It also ordered that the bond data be made public, something that the State Bank fought tooth and nail against but was eventually forced to.
Now we know why SBI was so reluctant to disclose the information. The bond data reveals that 1000 crores (100 million USD) of donations were made by "shell" companies who never made a profit or whose profits were an order of magnitude lower than the donations throughout their operations. If this 100 million, 85% went to the BJP.
What this means is 850 million dollars of illegal money was laundered through donations to the BJP for kickbacks and quid pro que arrangements.
Electoral Bonds: 33 loss-making firms donated electoral bonds worth ₹582 crore, 75% went to BJP | Data
Thus the current govt has systematically tried to legalize corruption for its own ends and to create electoral hegemony through such means.
This election is not going to be any different.
Over the last 12 years, the ruling BJP government have nearly monopolised all political funding sources by developing the electoral bond schemes. Large scale donations could not longer be done without buying "bonds" from the State Bank of India (which is a public sector bank under the Central Govt's control). While this information about who is buying the bonds for which party is supposedly secure, nobody really believed this as the Center could always access this unformation in a bank controlled by it. So the BJP can know which company or rich individual is financially supporting which party and reward and punish them accordingly in contracts, taxes, investigations etc.
Given this, more than 80% of all electoral funding has gone to the BJP for the past 10 years....an unprecedented amount when you remember that India is not a two party democracy. It has four to five major national parties and over 20 major religional parties that are in power it have significant presence. So BJP has naturally dominated all elections show sheer money power while others have been starved of funds.
That such a scheme is unconstitutional has been ruled by the Supreme court, extremely belatedly in my opinion.
Why was electoral bonds scrapped: Supreme Court order explained in 5 points
It also ordered that the bond data be made public, something that the State Bank fought tooth and nail against but was eventually forced to.
Now we know why SBI was so reluctant to disclose the information. The bond data reveals that 1000 crores (100 million USD) of donations were made by "shell" companies who never made a profit or whose profits were an order of magnitude lower than the donations throughout their operations. If this 100 million, 85% went to the BJP.
What this means is 850 million dollars of illegal money was laundered through donations to the BJP for kickbacks and quid pro que arrangements.
Electoral Bonds: 33 loss-making firms donated electoral bonds worth ₹582 crore, 75% went to BJP | Data
Thus the current govt has systematically tried to legalize corruption for its own ends and to create electoral hegemony through such means.
This election is not going to be any different.
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