Reality check: Will SC order on electoral bonds starve BJP or Congress?

New Delhi: The opposition parties led by the Congress found a ray of hope in Thursday’s historic verdict by the Supreme Court striking down electoral bonds.

They accused the BJP of taking unfair advantage of being the ruling party at the centre.

However, the jury is still out on which party will lose and who will benefit from this verdict. 

A look at the incomes of various political parties in recent years reveals that the BJP’s income from electoral bonds contributed to about 60% of the overall income.

On the other hand, regional parties like TMC and DMK earned 96% to 99% of their overall income from electoral bonds.

In the five years from 2016-17 to 2021-22, the BJP got over 52 per cent of it through Electoral Bonds. Around 32 per cent of the donations to the BJP came from corporate houses.

In 2022-23, the BJP received nearly Rs 1300 crore through electoral bonds.

The BJP's total contributions stood at Rs 2120 crore in the 2022-23 fiscal, of which 61 per cent came from electoral bonds.

The Congress, on the other hand, earned Rs 171 crore from electoral bonds which was down from Rs 236 crore in FY 2021-22.

In the year 2019-20 which saw general elections, the Congress had received Rs 317 crore from electoral bonds.

Over 96 per cent of the income of the Trinamool Congress in 2021-22 came from electoral bonds, according to the party's annual audit report, which also showed that its income from these bonds rose from Rs 42 crore in 2020-21 to Rs 528.14 crore in 2021-22.

Out of a total income of Rs 545.74 crore of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in 2021-22, as much as Rs 528.14 crore came from electoral bonds.

To add context, this amount is more than double of Congress’s receipt of Rs 236 crore through electoral bonds in the year 2021-22. 

The TMC’s receipts from electoral bonds were even more than what Congress received during 2019’s general elections. 

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, which rules Tamil Nadu, received over Rs 308 crore in contributions in the 2021-22 fiscal, including Rs 306 crore through electoral bonds.

Like TMC, DMK’s receipts were also more than that of Congress.

This data analysis explains that the BJP’s dependency on electoral bonds is much lesser than other parties and the SC verdict will only change the way parties receive funds.

Congress put all the blame for its declining donations on electoral bonds even though the decline was across all means.

The grand old party has been accusing that the party in power knew the corporates buying electoral bonds and threatened them through the Enforcement Directorate.

On the other hand, BJP argues that the opposition will target the corporates if their names are made public as they do in the case of Adani. In case the opposition comes to power, those corporates will be targeted even more, the BJP argues.

According to the verdict, all un-encashed bonds will be returned to donors. 

In any case, all bonds are to be encashed within 15 days from the date of issue.

For the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, bonds would have been encashed by now.