Narendra Modi’s BJP received £570 million through a program that lets people donate money anonymously.
India’s election commission shared information about political donations, showing how much money Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party got from a controversial funding program.
According to the released data, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) got more than 60 billion rupees (£570m) in donations through a system called electoral bonds, started by Modi’s government in 2017.
The supreme court decided last month that electoral bonds were against the constitution because they might lead to a secret agreement between donors and political parties. The court said that the State Bank of India (SBI) must reveal who bought the bonds.
Electoral bonds got criticized for not being clear because they let companies and people give money to political parties without saying who they are.
The data from 2019 showed how much the BJP got compared to other parties, as India is getting ready for elections next month. It’s expected that Modi’s BJP will win again.
The BJP got much more money than any other party, about 54% of all bonds. The main opposition party, Indian National Congress, got only 14 billion rupees through the same program.
The supreme court’s decision was seen as bad news for the BJP, which got a lot of money from electoral bonds.
The information released on Thursday showed that some of the biggest bond buyers are being looked into by India’s tax authorities.
For example, a lottery company called Future Gaming and Hotel Services, which has been investigated for money problems since 2019, bought a lot of bonds. The second-biggest buyer, Megha Engineering, and the fifth-biggest, Vedanta Group, are also being looked into.
But the released data still doesn’t say which donors gave money to which parties, leaving it unclear who exactly is funding the political groups.