Electoral bonds saga: 81 individual donors contributed Rs 62.98 crore to political parties in 2019

In the crowd of crorepati political donors, Abhijeet Soloman Kamble stands out for his humble contribution of Rs 5000 in 2019.

Abhijeet Soloman Kamble donated Rs 5000 by purchasing electoral bonds of Rs 1000 each on May 10th, 2019 from the State Bank of India.

Rs 5000 was the minimum donation received in 2019 through electoral bonds, according to the data published by the Election Commission of India on March 14.

In 2019, 81 individuals purchased electoral bonds from the State Bank of India from different parts of India.

Of these 81, 73 were men and 8 women.

The 73 men purchased electoral bonds worth Rs 571660000. Women donors purchased electoral bonds worth Rs 58150000

In 2019, the individual donors who have purchased electoral bonds are:

1) Ponugoti Hemendra Rao - Rs 3 lakh

2) Koteshwar Rao Gullapally - Rs 5 lakh

3) Madani Ramulu - Rs 4 lakh

4) Pappi Reddy Kishore Kumar Reddy - Rs 5 lakh

5) Peddireddy Ramanjaneya Reddy- Rs 5 lakh

6) Sangireddy Thirupathi Reddy, 5 lakh

7) Alok Narayan Pandey, Rs 2 crores and 40 lakh

8) Mohinder Kumar Jain Rs 15 lakh

9) Raj Deepak Varshaney, Rs 5 lakh

10) Premchand Godha, Rs 22 lakhs

11) Ravinder Agarwal, Rs 8 lakh

12) Shahab Rizvi, Rs 10 lakh

13) Swapna Chennavaram, Rs 5 lakh

14) Vassudeva Dempo Family Private Trust, Rs 5 lakh

15) Vinay Agarwal, Rs 9 lakh

16) P Shiva Shanker Reddy, Rs 4 lakh

17) Polina Ganeswararao, Rs 4 lakh

18) Sree Kruthi, Rs 8 lakh

19) Sanjay Jain Rs 10 lakh

20) Deven Chand Jain, Rs 70 lakh

21) Rajeev Kumar Jain Rs 20 lakh

22) Lakshmi Niwas Mittal, Rs 35 crore

23) Lalit Gullati, Rs 50 lakh

24) Vijay Kumar Goel, Rs 10 lakh

25) Saurabh Gupta, Rs 10 crores

26) Vikas Kumar Garg, Rs 30,000

27) Ch Udaya Shanker, Rs 2 lakh

28) C V Srinivasa, Rs 2 lakhs

29) Gourav Kumar, Rs 30,000

30) Saurabh Bakliwal, Rs 20 lakh

31) R Surya Naraynaraju, Rs 2 lakh

32) T Sirish Babu, Rs 2 lakh

33) Unnikrishnan K, Rs 1 crore 10 lakh

34) Bisham M Agarwal, Rs 10 lakh

35) Kishan M Agarwal, Rs 10 lakh

36) Narbheram Vishram, Rs 4 crore

37) Abhishek Rathi, Rs 4 lakh

38) Anil Chandak, Rs 9 lakh

39) Anshul Gadia, Rs 3 lakh

40) Anubhav Chandak, Rs 8 lakh

41) Bappaditya Roy, Rs 2 lakh

42) Hari Prasad Agarwal, Rs 5 lakh

43) Himanshu Rajnikant Shah, Rs 2 lakh

44) Jaswant Kumar Sethia, Rs 5 lakh

45) Jayant Kumar Das, Rs 1 lakh

46) Josyula Venkatesh, Rs 2 lakh

47) Manish Agarwal, Rs 2 lakh

48) Navarun Sen, Rs 2 lakh

49) Neeraj Gandhi, Rs 3 lakh

50) Pankaj Periwal, Rs 9 lakh

51) Prahlad Sharma, Rs 2 lakh

52) Pramod Bajoria, Rs 3 lakh

53) Rahul Tulisan Rs 4 lakh

54) Rajesh Jain Rs 1 lakh

55) Rajesh Kumar Agarwal, Rs 8 lakh

56) Rajesh Sharma Rs 10 lakh

57) Rajiv Kumar Jha, Rs 1 lakh

58) Ramavatar Sharma, Rs 2 lakh

59) Ramesh Taparia, Rs 2 lakh

60) Ravi Kumar Sharma, Rs 3 lakh

61) Rohit Agarwal, Rs 6 lakh

62) Shirish Bajaj, Rs 1 lakh

63) Sohan Saraf, Rs 1 lakh

64) Subhash Chandra Gupta, Rs 1 lakh

65) Sukhbir Singh, Rs 3 lakh

66) Sundeep Jhunjunwala, Rs 5 lakh

67) Vaibhav Bhutani, Rs 2 lakh

68) Vikash Jhunjunwala, Rs 5 lakh

69) Vikram Kumar Khaitan, Rs 5 lakh

70) Vinay Agarwal, Rs 1 lakh

71) Vinay Kumar Ganeriwala, Rs 2 lakh

72) Yogesh Garodia, Rs 1 lakh

73) Rajiv S Somani, Rs 10 lakh

Women Donors for Electoral Bonds: A total sum of Rs 5 crores, 81 lakhs and 50,000

1) Sarita Mirania Agarwal, Rs 10 lakhs

2) Seema Mirania Agarwal, Rs 10 lakhs

3) Indrani Patnaik, Rs 5 crore.

4) Urmila Devi Taparia, Rs 50 lakh

5) Amrita Agarwal, Rs 1 lakh Bhawana Agarwal, Rs 5 lakh

6) Bhawana Kasat, Rs 50,000

7) Sumitra Devi Agarwal Rs 5 lakh

What is an electoral bond?

The scheme, introduced by the government on January 2, 2018, was pitched as an alternative to cash donations made to political parties as part of efforts to bring transparency in political funding.

According to the Electoral Bond Scheme, an electoral bond is issued as a promissory note, which is bearer in character i.e. it does not carry the name of the buyer or payee, no ownership information is recorded and the political party is presumed to be its owner, as explained by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), one of the organisations which filed a petition against the scheme.

The scheme allows Indian citizens and domestic companies to donate these bonds — issued in multiples of Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10 lakh, and Rs 1 crore — to political parties of their choice. These bonds have to be redeemed by the political parties within 15 days. A person can buy the bonds, either singly or jointly with other individuals.

No limit exists on the number of electoral bonds that a person (including corporate entities) can purchase. The amount of bonds not cashed within the validity period of 15 days shall be deposited by the authorised bank.