Anil Agrawal Update: Veteran metal company Vedanta Limited has donated Rs 155 crore to political parties through electoral bonds in the financial year 2022-23. The company has disclosed this in a regulatory filing with the stock exchange. Let us tell you that Vedanta Limited is a promoted company of Anil Agarwal.
Despite being in debt, Vedanta Limited has donated Rs 457 crore to different political parties in the last five years through electoral bonds. The Electoral Bond Scheme was launched in 2018 during the tenure of the Modi government. The purpose of the Electoral Bond Scheme was to provide the option of donating to political parties in a transparent manner. Any individual or corporate can donate to political parties by purchasing electoral bonds.
State Bank of India, the largest public sector bank, can only issue electoral bonds and these bonds can be redeemed in SBI. Only select branches of SBI can issue these bonds and encash them there. Vedanta had donated Rs 123 crore to political parties in the form of electoral bonds in 2021-22. But in 2022-23 this amount is more than last year. The company did not donate in 2020-21. While Rs 114 crore was donated in 2019-20 and Rs 65 crore in 2018-19 through electoral bonds.
According to statistics, between 2018 and 2022, the Bharatiya Janata Party has received the maximum amount of Rs 5270 crore, Congress Rs 964 crore and Mamata Banerjee’s TMC Rs 767 crore through electoral bonds.
There is also a lot of criticism of the Electoral Bond Scheme. At present, political parties are not bound to disclose the names of those who donate less than Rs 20,000 through electoral bonds.
read this also:
Tesla will soon enter India, Elon Musk expressed confidence after meeting PM Modi
