When the Supreme Court quashed the electoral bonds scheme last month, it underlined the public’s right to information. The same motif has defined the ongoing case before the apex court, which has been trying to push the State Bank of India to release every information available about political donors.

In a massive data dump, the Election Commission of India – in three instalments so far – uploaded details of bond buyers, the amount encashed by parties, and the information earlier given to court in a sealed cover by certain parties about whose bonds they had encashed. Most parties, however, haven’t mentioned their donors.

Sections of print and digital media reported on certain worrisome patterns from the data so far, including patterns between action by probe agencies and purchase of bonds, grant of contracts, and firms in loss donating to parties or buying bonds many times over their profits. 

But primetime news on prominent channels couldn’t care less. 

Well, not until Sunday afternoon, when the fresh EC list named donors of around 10 parties, including the DMK, NCP and JDS. 

On Thursday and Friday, when the first two lists were uploaded by the EC, primetime shows on several prominent channels seemed to focus on the One Nation One Election announcement, the liquor policy case, or the controversial citizenship law. And even those which did mention electoral bonds, did so to comment on the opposition. 

Let’s take a look. 

TV9 Bharatvarsh

TV9 Bharatvarsh, which has links to Megha Engineering, the second biggest buyer of electoral bonds, completely skipped any coverage of electoral bonds in its primetime shows. 

In the Friday episode  of Adi Kyunki Humein Desh Ki Padi, the anchor Gaurav Agrawal changed the topic or ignored the question any time an opposition spokesperson tried to raise the issue. The channel ignored the issue on its Monday primetime too.

News18 India and CNN News18

The Hindi channel’s primetime did not feature a single debate on the electoral bonds issue on Thursday, Friday or even Monday.

Rubika Liyaqat’s 4 pm show was an exception with a discussion spanning 15 minutes on Friday. However, Rubika, like the others, seemed to emphasise that “every party” had benefited from the bonds. 

On Monday, the issue found around a 20-second mention at the end of Amish Devgan’s show, where he justified the BJP receiving a disproportionate amount of money saying the party had a government in the centre and in several states. 

The channel’s English variant CNN-News18 discussed the issue on primetime only on Rahul Shivshankar’s show on Friday. Without questioning the BJP, the anchor spoke how one of the biggest donors was a company based in Hyderabad, that one of the “shadiest” donors had “ties to DMK”, and each party had engaged in quid pro quo arrangements. He said that since the opposition parties had not refused to take the money through electoral bonds, they had “let down the country equally”. “Bad stuff that happens in politics doesn’t happen through the EBs,” he said. 

He had moved on from the issue by Monday, discussing Rahul Gandhi’s comments instead.

Republic

In his opening monologue for his show The Debate, which aired on Thursday, anchor Arnab Goswami dismissed the whole issue, describing it as a “damp squib”. “Corporate funding into political parties is well established. Now, what is the controversy here, what is the big deal?” 

The line wasn’t consistent, as Arnab moved on to say that the biggest donor – Santiago Martin’s Future Gaming – had faced income tax action in the past, and asked if parties should take money from firms under probe. 

When a panellist pointed out that the second biggest donor, Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited, received government contracts and was praised by Nitin Gadkari, he hit back saying that “nobody can link one rupee to one party yet”. 

But this changed on Monday when Arnab dedicated a segment on his show to the issue of electoral bonds, in addition to EVMs, and Rahul Gandhi’s Shakti comment. Questioning the donation by Future Gaming to DMK, trying to link the company to TMC leaders, and discussing the possibility of companies getting contracts in exchange of bonds, Arnab called this a “form of hafta (extortion)”. 

The Debate on Friday was focussed on the announcement of election dates, K Kavitha’s arrest by ED, and the CAA implementation. Bonds were discussed for around 15 minutes, when brought up by spokespersons, which once again led to Arnab questioning whether it was morally right for parties to accept political funding from companies under investigation. 

Times Now Navbharat

In his show on Thursday, Sushant Sinha said the opposition’s “propaganda” against the Narendra Modi government has “failed”. Pointing to the Congress’s “Adani-Ambani” jibe against the BJP, he said none of the two were directly named in the list of donors.

He offered another line of defence on Friday. Sushant said since the opposition couldn’t find Adani or Ambani in the list, people “running an agenda against Narendra Modi” tried to establish links. He said Reliance owned just 16.68 percent of shares in Qwik Supply Chain Private Limited, among the top 10 buyers of bonds.

Hitting back over allegations surrounding Megha Engineering’s electoral bonds and the award of contracts, Sushant said the Congress should know better than to call this corruption, since they themselves were “experienced in the matter, having engaged in corruption worth thousands of crores”.

On Monday, his position changed. “Modi ko gherne wale netaon ke gale mein phas gaya chunavi chande ka phanda,” he said, questioning the Congress for not naming its donors without offering any question for the BJP.

India Today

Sudhir Chaudhary did not discuss the issue of electoral bonds on his 9 pm show on Thursday, which focussed ‘One Nation One Election’, CAA and petrol prices. On his show Black and White on Friday, Sudhir said there was no party which had not had its share of political funding, and that money went to those parties that had a chance to win. On the issue of bonds being bought following raids by central agencies, Sudhir said that “these rumours are being spread with incomplete information” and asked why agency action had continued despite the donation.

But he wasn’t as circumspect when it came to opposition parties. 

For Megha Engineering, Sudhir said it was based in Telangana, had received contracts from the BRS government, and told the viewers that they could “guess who this money went to”.  It was difficult to confirm which party the money went to, he suggested, except for all the firms which were not headquartered in Telangana, “the south” or West Bengal.

The quid pro quo hint was only for the opposition even on Monday, when Sudhir dedicated a 30-minute segment to bonds. On the BJP receiving nearly half of the total funding, he repeatedly asserted that it had governments in many states. 

His colleague Anjana Om Kashyap also discussed the issue only on Monday, to junk the allegations of quid pro quo against the BJP, and to put the opposition parties under scrutiny. What was an exception was her question to the BJP spokesperson over the party not naming its donors. “Lottery King par DMK kyu meherbaan,” read the ticker. 

Meanwhile, Rajdeep Sardesai on India Today dedicated around 15 minutes of his show to discuss the issue with Nitin Sethi of The Reporter’s Collective on Thursday . He dedicated his show on Monday to the issue, repeating the government’s point about a lack of anonymity possibly leading to funding in black money.  

Before the electoral bonds data was released, Newslaundry and The News Minute had pointed to a pattern to central action and political funding. In case you missed it, read it here.

Three news organisations, including Newslaundry, Scroll and The News Minute, and independent journalists subsequently joined hands to investigate the bonds data. Read our extensive coverage here.