Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday said that the now defunct electoral bond scheme was introduced to "wipe out black money" from the political funding process. This was Amit Shah's first reaction after the Supreme Court scrapped the electoral bonds scheme.
The electoral bonds scheme, which was introduced in 2018, was struck down by the Supreme Court last month.
Amit Shah said while he did not want to make any comments on the Supreme Court's order, he was ready to discuss the electoral bonds scheme and how it was introduced to wipe out black money.
The Home Minister said that before the scheme was implemented, donations to political parties were made through cash. After the scheme was launched, companies or individuals had to submit a cheque to the Reserve Bank of India to purchase bonds for donation to parties.
"The BJP received around Rs 6,000 crore through electoral bonds. The total bonds (of all parties) amounted to Rs 20,000 crore. So where did the rest of the bonds worth Rs 14,000 crore go?" asked the Home Minister.
The Home Minister pointed out that the Trinamool Congress encashed bonds worth Rs 1,600 crore, Congress received Rs 1,400 crore, Bharat Rashtra Samithi received Rs 1,200 crore, BJD received Rs 775 crore and DMK received Rs 649 crore.
He slammed Congress and said when donations were made through cash transactions, "they deposit Rs 100 in the party and keep Rs 1,000 in their homes".
A day earlier, the Election Commission of India (ECI) published the electoral bonds data shared by SBI. The information also showed the purchases made by both companies and individuals and separately how much money each party encashed.
