The Election Commission made the electoral bond figures public on its website on Thursday.
Now many shocking facts are coming to light regarding these. Three of the top five companies that donated money to political parties between 2019 and 2024 bought electoral bonds when they were being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Income Tax Department.
These include lottery company Future Gaming, infrastructure firm Megha Engineering and mining giant Vedanta.
The Election Commission made the electoral bond figures public on its website on Thursday. Now many shocking facts are coming to light regarding these.
Three of the top five companies that donated money to political parties between 2019 and 2024 bought electoral bonds when they were being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Income Tax Department.
These include lottery company Future Gaming, infrastructure firm Megha Engineering and mining giant Vedanta.
According to Dee, Martin and others hatched a criminal conspiracy to violate the provisions of the Lotteries Regulation Act, 1998 and obtain wrongful gains by defrauding the Sikkim government.
“Martin and his associates made illegal earnings of Rs 910.3 crore by inflating claims of prize-winning tickets during the period 01.04.2009 to 31.08.2010,” the ED said in a statement on July 22, 2019.
Megha Engineering & Infrastructure Limited
The second largest donor to political parties is Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited (MEIL). It has bought bonds worth Rs 1000 crore between 2019 and 2024.
Run by Krishna Reddy, Megha Engineering is involved in major projects of the Telangana government such as the Kaleshwaram Dam Project. It is also constructing Zojila Tunnel and Polavaram Dam.
In October 2019, the Income Tax Department had raided the offices of the company. After this, investigation was also started by the Enforcement Directorate. Incidentally, on April 12 the same year, MEIL had purchased poll bonds worth Rs 50 crore.
Last year, the government had rejected a $1 billion investment proposal from Chinese electric car maker BYD and its Hyderabad-based partner MEIL to set up an electric vehicle manufacturing plant.
Vedanta group also on radar
Anil Aggarwal’s Vedanta Group is the fifth largest donor. It has purchased bonds worth Rs 376 crore, the first tranche of which was purchased in April 2019.
But it is noteworthy that in mid-2018, ED claimed that it had evidence related to Vedanta Group’s alleged involvement in the visa bribery case, where some Chinese nationals were given visas by allegedly breaking the rules.
A corruption case was registered in 2022 in a reference sent by the ED to the CBI, following which the ED initiated a money laundering investigation. On April 16, 2019, Vedanta Limited purchased bonds worth over Rs 39 crore.
Over the next four years, excluding the pandemic year of 2020, till November 2023, it bought bonds worth more than Rs 337 crore, taking the total value of bonds purchased by Vedanta to more than Rs 376 crore.
Jindal Steel & Power is also among the top 15 donors. The company has donated Rs 123 crore through bonds during this period.
While the company has faced investigation by central agencies in the coal block allocation case. The ED had raided the premises of the company and its promoter Naveen Jindal in April 2022 in connection with a fresh case of forex violations.