The Chairperson of Biocon Limited, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw on Monday issued a clarification that she purchased electoral bonds and donated to JDS and other parties in a personal capacity. “My donations were nominal on the principle of funding election campaigns with white money,” Kiran said.
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“Would like to clarify that Biocon did not make any political donation to JDS or any other party for elections. At a personal level I purchased electoral bonds which I donated to JDS and several parties,” Shaw posted on X.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday published electoral bonds data, received from the State Bank of India (SBI), on its official website in compliance with the orders of the Supreme Court.
The SBI told the Supreme Court that a total of 22,217 electoral bonds were purchased by political parties between April 1, 2019, and February 15, 2024, out of which 22,030 were redeemed.
According to the affidavit filed by SBI’s chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara, the bank has also furnished to the poll panel information like the date of encashment of the electoral bonds, the names of political parties which received the donations and the denominations of the bonds.
“A total number of 22,217 bonds were purchased during the period April 1, 2019, till February 15, 2024. At the time of collating the information for the ECI, the details were segregated as below…,” it said.
JD(S) is one of a few parties that have revealed the names of donors who donated to them via electoral bonds.
Citing the poll panel’s data, a Business Today report said that JDS, in 2018, received Rs 1 Crore from Infosys Technologies, Rs 22 crore from the Embassy Group, Rs 25 lakh from Health Care Global Enterprises, and Rs 50 lakh from Biocon.
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw purchased bonds worth Rs 6 crore in her capacity.
In a landmark verdict delivered on February 15 this year, a five-judge Constitution bench had scrapped the Centre’s electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous political funding, calling it “unconstitutional” and ordered disclosure by the EC of donors, the amount donated by them and the recipients by March 13.
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