Several posts (here, here & here) accompanying a screenshot of a report showing funds transferred from Prudent Electoral Trust to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are widely circulating across social media platforms. The claim associated with the post alleges that the Serum Institute of India (SII) donated around Rs. 50.02 crores to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in August 2022 via electoral bonds, purportedly explaining why the Serum Institute was the only company allowed to produce vaccines, and the only company from which the government procured the COVID-19 vaccine. In this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: The Serum Institute of India donated Rs. 50.02 crores to the BJP through Electoral Bonds in August 2022.
Fact: The viral screenshot shows a report published by Reuters on 14 March 2024, which details the funds received and disbursed by the Prudent Electoral Trust during 2022-23. According to this report and data on the ECI website, SII donated Rs. 52.25 crores to the Prudent Electoral Trust in August 2022, and a cheque for the same amount was immediately issued to the BJP by the Prudent Electoral Trust. The company did not donate Rs. 52.25 crores via electoral bonds. The graphic actually depicts money transferred to the BJP through an electoral trust. According to reports and data available on the CDSCO website, the government has approved vaccines from other manufacturers along with SII’s vaccines, and the government has also procured vaccines from other manufacturers. Hence the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
We have noticed that the screenshot of the viral report in circulation carries a text stating, “Money which companies gave to Prudent Electoral Trust was disbursed to the BJP almost immediately,” attributed to the news agency Reuters. Building on this information, we conducted a relevant keyword search on the internet and found the full report published by Reuters on 14 March 2024, under the headline, “Obscure trust links India’s top businesses with Modi’s election war chest.”
According to this report, the Prudent Electoral Trust managed to raise about $272 million since its creation in 2013. The trust has donated around 75% of that amount to the BJP. While Prudent does not disclose how donations made by individual corporate donors are distributed, Reuters used public records from 2018 to 2023 to track flows from some of India’s largest companies. ArcelorMittal Design, Engineering Centre Private Limited, ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India, and Bharti Airtel are among the companies that donated large sums of money to Prudent. The Prudent Trust, in turn, issued cheques for the respective amounts to the BJP immediately after receiving them as per the report. This report further stated that donations received from the Serum Institute of India (SII), DLF Ltd, and Essar Group were moved to the BJP soon after Prudent received them. The viral screenshot is from this report published by Reuters, showing the quick transfer of funds from Prudent Electoral Trust.
This electoral trust data is available on the website of the Election Commission of India (ECI). According to data available on the ECI website, the Prudent electoral trust received Rs. 363.16 crores during the financial year 2022-23. This data shows that SII indeed donated Rs. 50.25 crores to the trust in three installments in August 2022, and a cheque of the same amount was issued to the BJP on 18 August 2022.
Electoral Trusts:
According to a report available on the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) website, electoral trusts are established by companies with the objective of distributing contributions to political parties. The ‘Electoral Trusts’ scheme was introduced by the Congress-led UPA-2 government on 31 January 2013, specifying the procedure and eligibility for registration of Electoral Trusts. These trusts were required to distribute 95% of their total income to eligible political parties. They also maintain a list indicating the contributors and recipients of contributions. This Electoral Trusts scheme is distinct from the electoral bonds scheme introduced by the BJP-led Central government in 2019, as the names of donors in the latter are kept completely anonymous. More information regarding the difference between these two schemes can be found here.
To learn more about various claims regarding the SII vaccine, we conducted a relevant keyword search on the internet. We found a Lok Sabha response dated 23 July 2021, which addressed a question regarding details about the approved COVID-19 vaccines in India, along with a chronological account of their approval. According to this response, SII’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, along with three other COVID-19 vaccines, received approval from the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) for restricted use in emergency situations. In addition to these vaccines, CDSCO has also received four applications from other vaccine manufacturers for approval for restricted use in emergencies, which are currently under CDSCO scrutiny.
Subsequently, we also searched the website of CDSCO for information on COVID-19 vaccines available in India. This search revealed an additional list of 16 other COVID-19 vaccines approved by CDSCO for restricted emergency use, in addition to SII’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin. Both SII’s and Bharat Biotech’s vaccines also received approval for manufacturing, sale, or distribution within India.
According to reports, the Government of India has also procured vaccines from other manufacturers like Bharat Biotech (Covaxin), Biological E Limited (Corbevax), and Zydus Cadila (ZyCov-D), in addition to Serum Institute of India’s (SII) Covishield.
To sum it up, a screenshot of a report is being shared with a misleading claim that it depicts the amount donated by SII to the BJP via electoral bonds in 2022.
