SC order on electoral bonds may bring back black money into poll funding, says Shah

The Opposition will have a lot of questions to answer when the list of donors are revealed, says Amit Shah.

The Supreme Court’s judge striking down the electoral bonds scheme may bring back black money into election funding, said Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah on March 20.

“I respect India's Supreme Court decision on electoral bonds and so should every citizen of the country. However, SC decision may bring back black money into election funding," he said at News18's Rising Bharat Summit 2024.

The home minister said this was his personal view on the ongoing electoral bonds controversy.

Catch LIVE updates on the summit here. 

He noted that electoral bonds helped reduce black money involved in election funding. Speaking of BJP’s funding through electoral bonds, Shah said, “We have always received most of our funding from electoral bonds before Model Code of Conduct is implemented.”

Citing statistics of the cash receipts prior to electoral bonds, Shah said, "In 2014, of the donations that BJP got, 81 percent of it was in cash, given anonymously in Rs 20,000 or so. By 2017, it had reduced to 17 percent. By 2023, it had reduced to just 3 percent.”

On March 18, the apex court directed the State Bank of India (SBI) to submit the unique alphanumeric code of electoral bonds to ECI by March 21. The Election Commission of India (ECI) had been directed to publish the list forthwith.

It is expected that these numbers may show who contributed to which party through electoral bonds. Industry bodies moved the apex court to defer the SBI from revealing the bond numbers. However, the SC refused to entertain it.

Speaking of the revelation that is expected to come tomorrow of electoral bond numbers, Shah said, “ Indi Alliance (Opposition) won’t be able to show face when their list of donors is revealed.” He further noted that the opposition will have a lot of questions to answer when the list of donors is revealed.

“ Everything will be clear when the list of donors and their donations to parties are released," said Shah.

In a landmark ruling on February 15, the Supreme Court unanimously struck down the electoral bonds scheme, saying it violated Article 19 of the Constitution by not disclosing the source of funding to political parties. The apex court had also ordered SBI, the sole bank authorised to handle the scheme, to submit the details of the bonds purchased since April 12, 2019, to the Election Commission by March 6.

SBI had then asked for an extension till June 30 to submit the details, arguing that they were not maintained centrally at any one place but in two different silos "to ensure that donors' anonymity would be protected". However, the Supreme Court on March 11 dismissed the plea and ordered the bank to send the electoral bonds details to the Election Commission by close of business on March 12, with the poll panel to publish the same on its website by 5 pm on March 15.

Electoral bonds data revealed that Bharatiya Janata Party was by far the biggest beneficiary of the electoral bonds scheme, receiving Rs 6,061 crore as political donations in the last five years, according to data submitted by State Bank of India (SBI) to the Election Commission of India of March 14. This amounts to 48 percent of all electoral bonds encashed by political parties since the start of 2019-20 and before it was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court earlier this year.

In second place is Trinamool Congress, which mopped up Rs 1,610 crore, followed by the Indian National Congress at Rs 1,422 crore.