Prashant Bhushan Demanded SIT Probe on Electoral Bond

By Bijay Mishra 
 Bhubaneshwar, 05-5-24
   Supreme  Court Advocate & Legal Activist Prashant Bhushan, demanded an independent probe by Special Investigation Team (SIT) to look into the details of the political funding and also find if there was a quid-pro-quo between the corporate and political parties.

Addressing a press conference here at Bhubaneshwar organised by Lokashakti Abhiyan , Bhushan told that ,  “Electoral Bond is the largest scam of Independent India, which even bigger than 2G and coal scams. In the case of 2G and coal scams there were no money trails. But in the present case there is a certain money trail.”

To empirically establish the money trail and also the suspected quid-pro-quo between the corporate and the political parties, “there should be an independent probe by an SIT, ”.  He said, “Only such an investigation can substantially  establish our legitimate doubt about companies paying to political parties to get their jobs done in terms of policy, contract and otherwise.”      

Bhushan said, “After doing a preliminary analysis of the data now available in public domain, it has been revealed that BJP received Rs 1,751 crore in donation through electoral bonds from various companies and in turn those companies got government contracts worth Rs 62,000 crore.”

He also alleged that the total number of firms, which were raided and in turn they donated to the BJP, is 104 and out of which 30 are identified as shell companies. He said, “In at least 49 cases, Rs 62,000 crore in postpaid/project approval were given by the central or BJP state governments, for which Rs 580 crore in kickbacks (in the form of electoral bonds) were given to the BJP within three months after approval /contract.”Bhushan said analysis by independent media has shown that the electoral bonds were given to the BJP ostensibly as kickbacks for getting large contracts, to evade cases by the Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax and the CBI, for changing policies to suit a particular company and even money laundering. "Parakala Prabhakar, husband of (Union Minister) Nirmala Sitharaman, calls it the largest scam in the world. “You should not judge the scam by the Rs 16,500 crore worth of bonds. Because, for every thousand crore rupees of that electoral bonds, at least 100 times worth of that contract had been given to the companies that gave those donations," Bhushan said.

"For example, Megha Engineering gave Rs 140 crore bonds to the BJP in April (2023). In May (2023), they were given a Rs 14,000 crore contract for a tunnel work by the Maharashtra government controlled by the BJP. For the Rs 16,000 crore bonds, probably Rs 16 lakh crore worth contracts have been influenced by bonds," he said.  He told that , “We  need to find out the people in the government, companies and agencies involved in the conspiracy. We need an independent agency constituted by the Supreme Court to probe this. We have filed a petition seeking a special investigation team. Hopefully it will come up for hearing soon," 

Addressing the press conference , Anjali Bhardwaj, National Coordinator, National Campaign for People's Right to Information  and Activists , “Common Cause”  told that the government had reassured the anonymity to political donors after concerns over tracking of donations made to opposition parties. 

Anjali said the SBI has denied information sought under RTI Act regarding the standard operation procedure followed in keeping a track of these bonds. “

Mr Prafulla Samantaray, President Lokashakti Abhiyan alleged that , after allowed illegal mining by the Odisha Government, several mining companies have given huge amount to BJD & also BJP Government through electoral bonds .