Poll bonds were just left at our offices, don’t know by whom, say TMC & JD(U)

March 18, 2024

In a bizarre explanation to mask their donors, Trinamool Congress and JD(U), in their electoral bond disclosures for 2018-19, said some anonymous persons dropped/handed over sealed envelopes in their respective offices in Kolkata and Patna and, therefore, they were unaware of who made the donations.
Though JD(U) disclosed the identities of donors of Rs 3 crore out of Rs 13 crore it received in April 2019, TMC did not disclose identities of donors who collectively donated nearly Rs 75 crore through electoral bonds to the party between July 16, 2018, and May 22, 2019.

“Most of these bonds were sent to our office and dropped in the drop box or sent through messengers from various persons who wished to support our party, many of whom prefer to remain anonymous Thus, we are not in the possession of names and other details of the buyers,” TMC said in its submission to EC on May 27, 2019. JD(U), in its submission on May 30, 2019, said, “Somebody came to our office on April 3, 2019, in Patna and handed over a sealed envelope and when it was opened, we found a bunch containing 10 electoral bonds of Rs 1 crore each.”

"In this view of the situation, we are unable to provide any more detail about the donors,” JD(U) stated in its submission.
JD(U) emphasised that the party was not aware of the details of donors and said, “Neither we know nor we tried to know because when we received the bonds, order of Supreme Court was not in existence and only the gazette notification of Govt of India was in operation.”
The party, however, disclosed the identities of two donors — Shree Cement Limited, Ajmer (Rajasthan) and Bharti Airtel Limited, Gurgaon (Haryana). While Shree Cement donated Rs 2 crore on April 16, 2019, Bharti Airtel donated Rs 1 crore on April 26, 2019.

TMC, on the other hand, did not disclose the identity of any donor. But the party pointed out that the identities could be established with the help of unique number of electoral bonds which were issued by State Bank of India.
It said, “We also understand that as per the electoral bonds scheme, SBI is the sole issuer of these bonds and that all the persons to whom the bonds were issued have submitted their KYC documents including their PAN card, identity proof, address proof and other supporting documents as per the requirement of the bank. Therefore, the bank has all the details of all the bond holders who have donated the bonds to us.”
TMC pointed out that identities of donors could be established with the help of unique number of electoral bonds, which were issued by State Bank of India.

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