After the Election Commission of India (ECI) released details concerning donations to various political parties via electoral bonds, Union Minister Amit Shah asserted during a media address that “the Bharatiya Janata Party has received bonds worth approximately Rs 6,000 crore. The total bonds are worth Rs 20,000 crore. So where did bonds worth Rs 14,000 crore go?”. Subsequently, similar assertions made by Shah have been circulating on social media platforms (here, here & here), suggesting that “with 303 MPs, the BJP received donations amounting to Rs 6,000 crore, whereas the opposition, comprising a total of 242 MPs, received donations totalling Rs 14,000 crore.” In this article, we aim to fact-check the accuracy of these claims.
An archived version of a similar post can be viewed here
Claim: With 303 MPs, the BJP received donations amounting to Rs 6,000 crores, whereas the opposition, comprising a total of 242 MPs, received donations totaling Rs 14,000 crore through electoral bonds.
Fact: The total sum of political donations received by the political parties since the inception of the electoral bond scheme amounts to Rs 16,492 crores. Out of the overall sum, the Bharatiya Janata Party received about Rs. 8,251 crores through electoral bonds over the years, marking the largest individual share among all parties. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
The Electoral Bond scheme was first announced in the 2017-18 budget and the scheme was subsequently notified in January 2018. Since then, political parties have provided information related to the electoral bonds obtained by them in their annual audit report submitted to the ECI every financial year. Further, following the Supreme Court directions, the ECI has disclosed on its website, the information as of November 2023, related to the electoral bonds received by various parties in a sealed cover.
However, the recent disclosures from the ECI which shared data submitted by the SBI, regarding political parties receiving donations via electoral bonds pertain solely to contributions made from 12 April 2019 to 24 January 2024. Collating these diverse sources provides a comprehensive understanding of the donations received by political parties since the commencement of the electoral bond scheme. These sources can be found in the table below.
| Year | Source of Electoral Bond Data |
| 2017-18 to 2022-23 | Annual Audit Reports submitted by Political Parties to ECI |
| 12 April 2019 to 24 January 2024 | Disclosure of Electoral Bonds by SBI to ECI |
| Data till November 2023 | Details of Electoral Bonds as received in digitized form from Supreme Court Registry, based on earlier directions for sealed cover disclosure |
As per data obtained using RTI since the inception of the electoral bonds scheme, the total sum of political donations through the electoral bond scheme amounts to Rs. 16,492 crore as of date. Dataful has aggregated the electoral bonds data acquired through the various methods outlined earlier and also responses received through RTI queries. This data was able to map the parties that received electoral bonds worth Rs 16,488.2 crore. There is a slight discrepancy of around four crores.
The examination of the data indicates that the total donations received through electoral bonds stand at Rs. 16,492 crores and not Rs. 20,000 crores as asserted by Home Minister Amit Shah. Further, out of the overall sum, the Bharatiya Janata Party has amassed Rs. 8,251 crore through electoral bonds over the years, marking the largest individual share (50.04%) among all parties.
This indicates that the BJP has secured a significant portion of political funding, with the remainder of the donations dispersed among other political parties. The detailed breakup of the donations received by various political parties through electoral bonds over the years can be viewed in the below table.
Additionally, the Home Minister contended that aside from the donations received by the BJP, the remaining funds were contributed to opposition parties. A comparable argument was presented in the viral post, taking into account the tally of MPs of the ruling party and opposition. However, it is important to note that not all parties, apart from the BJP, are aligned with the opposition. Some parties were previously in alliance with the BJP, although some have since terminated their alliance. Furthermore, there are also a few parties that maintain an equal distance from both the ruling and opposition alliances.
To sum it up, the BJP received a little more than half the total donations of Rs. 16,492 crore received via electoral bonds.
