Party time: Of 22 phases of electoral bonds, regional parties top in 8, Cong only in 1

Good punters bet on the winning horse. As such, the results of corporate and individual purchases funding political parties throw little surprise.

Of the Rs 12,769 crore of electoral bonds encashed, the Bharatiya Janata Party pocketed almost half at Rs 6,060 crore. It’s followed by the Trinamool Congress with Rs 1,609 crore, Congress with Rs 1,421 crore, and the Bharat Rashtra Samithi with Rs 1,214 crore.

So far, so unsurprising. But we did spot some patterns when it came to phases.

The purchase of bonds by companies/individuals and their encashment by parties took place across over 30 phases in total from 2018. Phase 1 was launched from March 1-10, 2018. Each phase or window for sale of bonds normally opens for 10 days four times a year. More phases were added in election years.

Parties can encash bonds within 15 days of the bond’s issue date. 

Notably, the Election Commission only released electoral bond data for 22 phases – from phase 9 in April 2019 to phase 30 in January 2024. Here’s what we found from our analysis of these 22 phases.

➞ The BJP topped the charts in 13 phases. In four of these phases, where the total encashment was Rs 1,000 crore, the BJP got 3,012 crore. The Congress, in comparison, was the largest receiver in only one phase in October 2023.

➞ The BJP was also far ahead of other parties in phases preceding the Lok Sabha polls in 2019 and 2024.

➞ Four regional parties – TMC, BRS, Biju Janata Dal and YSR Congress – were the largest receivers of the bond money in eight phases. 

➞ Top donors substantially contributed to regional parties. We’ll give you examples later in this report. 

➞ More bonds were bought in the run-up to Lok Sabha or assembly polls. Stakes often skewed in favour of incumbent parties or those tipped to win. There were two exceptions. In the 28th phase in October 2023, the Congress received the highest amount ahead of the five assembly polls, though it only won in Telangana. Similarly in November 2022, the BJP received the highest amount ahead of the Himachal Pradesh polls, but it lost the election. 

Let’s break this down.

Regional party time

Overall, out of 22 phases, the TMC and BRS were the regional parties that received the highest amounts in three phases each. 

The TMC topped in July 2020 (Rs 15.38 crore of Rs 45.38 crore), January 2021 (Rs 26 crore of Rs 42.07 crore) and July 2021 (Rs 107 crore of Rs 150.51 crore). 

The BRS was top beneficiary in October 2021 (Rs 153 crore of Rs 614.33 crore), April 2022 (Rs 410 crore of Rs 648.48 crore) and July 2023 (Rs 318 crore of Rs 812.75 crore).

Let’s look at a couple of these phases more closely.

In July 2021, the 17th phase, the TMC received 107.6 crore of the total Rs 150.51 crore bonds redeemed by political parties. The BJP got Rs 18 crore. The top donors in this phase were Future Gaming and Hotel Services PR (Rs 30 crore), MKJ Enterprises Ltd (Rs 22.4 crore), and the Sanjiv Goenka-led Haldia Energy Ltd (Rs 20 crore).

In the 18th phase in October 2021, the BJP received about 10 percent of the total Rs 614.33 bonds redeemed. The biggest chunk went to the BRS (Rs 153 crore), TMC (Rs 141.94 crore), BJD (Rs 125 crore) and DMK (Rs 99 crore). During this 10-day window, the top purchasers of bonds were Future Gaming (Rs 195 crore), Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd (Rs 100 crore), Essel Mining and Industries Ltd (Rs 50 crore), and Haldia Energy Ltd (Rs 30 crore).

In the 20th phase in April 2022, the BRS was the largest receiver again. It encashed bonds worth Rs 410 crore out of the total Rs 648 crore. Next came the DMK (Rs 100 crore) and the BJP (Rs 98.5 crore). Top purchasers in this period were Future Gaming (Rs 100 crore), Yashoda Super Speciality Hospital (Rs 80 crore), Chennai Green Woods Private Ltd (Rs 50 crore), DLF Commercial Developers Ltd (Rs 40 crore), and Haldia Energy and Megha Engineering and Infrastructure  with Rs 25 crore each.

Meanwhile the YSR Congress was top beneficiary in the 14th phase in October 2020 (Rs 89 crore of Rs 282.29) while the BJD was top in the 21st phase July 2021 (Rs 107 crore of Rs 389.5 crore). 

Polls open money floodgates

Electoral bond transactions were more muted during months with zero or fewer elections. 

But during the run-up to polls, they sky-rocketed.

Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2019, political parties redeemed bonds worth Rs 2,107 crore. Of this, the BJP – tipped to win at the time – received 84 percent, approximately Rs 1,770 crore in two phases across April and May. Transactions fell in July, with donors buying bonds worth Rs 45.38 crore only. At the time, assembly polls in Haryana, Jharkhand and Maharashtra were still six months away. 

But when sale of bonds opened for the phases coinciding with the assembly polls in 2023, the amounts spiked. Phases 28 and 29 fell in October and November 2023, ahead of the polls in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh. 

Bonds with Rs 1,148 crore were sold in phase 28. The Congress, in its only climb to the top, got Rs 401 crore. It went on to lose all the elections except Telangana. During phase 29, the BJP scored Rs 703 crore bonds out of Rs 1,006 crore sold.

Another spike was witnessed in January 2022 in the run-up to the state polls in Goa, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Uttar Pradesh. Out of Rs 1,212 crore of bonds sold, the BJP got half.

There were exceptions too. Three months after its poll victory in West Bengal in April 2021, the TMC’s redemption of bonds was the highest at Rs 107 crore in the 17th phase. In another phase in April 2022, BRS encashed the highest amount at Rs 410 crore of the total Rs 648.48 crore. Telangana was still one and a half years away from the assembly polls.

This report is part of a collaborative project involving three news organisations – Newslaundry, Scroll, The News Minute – and several independent journalists.

Project Electoral Bond includes Aban Usmani, Anand Mangnale, Anisha Sheth, Anjana Meenakshi, Ayush Tiwari, Azeefa Fathima, Basant Kumar, Dhanya Rajendran, Jayashree Arunachalam, Joyal George, M Rajshekhar, Maria Teresa Raju, Nandini Chandrashekhar, Neel Madhav, Nikita Saxena, Parth MN, Pooja Prasanna, Prajwal Bhat, Prateek Goyal, Pratyush Deep, Ragamalika Karthikeyan, Raman Kirpal, Ravi Nair, Sachi Hegde, Shabbir Ahmed, Shivnarayan Rajpurohit, Siddhartha Mishra, Supriya Sharma, Sudipto Mondal, Tabassum Barnagarwala and Vaishnavi Rathore.

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