During a rally in Thane, Maharashtra, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi made a bold statement, calling electoral bonds the biggest extortion racket in the world. He alleged that funds collected through this scheme were used to divide political parties and overthrow opposition governments. Rahul claimed that contracts awarded by Congress governments in states had no connection to electoral bonds.
Rahul Gandhi criticized the Prime Minister for introducing electoral bonds as a means to clean up political finance in India. However, he accused the scheme of extorting money from the country’s largest corporations, stealing money for major contracts, and intimidating companies to donate money to the BJP. The opposition parties have targeted the BJP following the Election Commission’s release of details on electoral bonds on its website, as ordered by the Supreme Court.
The Election Commission shared details of electoral bonds worth Rs 12,155 crore bought from SBI between April 12, 2019 and Jan 24 this year, and a list of bonds deposited by parties in their accounts totaling Rs 12,769 crore. The data showed that the BJP received the largest amount of contributions through electoral bonds at Rs 6,061 crore, followed by TMC at Rs 1,610 crore. Congress was also a significant recipient of these contributions but not as much as it should have been considering it is one of the major opposition party who had been criticizing this scheme since its introduction . Notably, parties in power in states received more bonds compared to those in opposition except JD(U), which despite governing Bihar only received Rs 14 crore which makes it questionable if they are using it for public welfare or for their own party benefits.
