Around 2019 polls, Chennai Super Kings was donor No.1 for AIADMK

THE ALL India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), once the ruling party in Tamil Nadu, got significant funding through electoral bonds, particularly from Chennai Super Kings Cricket Limited (CSK) – whose parent company is India Cements – and few other entities within a narrow timeframe, specifically in early April 2019, around the last general elections.

During 2018-2019, leading to the Lok Sabha elections, the AIADMK was struggling to maintain its political legacy while preparing for a significant electoral battle. In the days preceding the polls, the party’s electoral bond receipts spiked, primarily due to CSK’s contributions, and notable contributions from Gopal Srinivasan of TVS Group.

According to the latest data made public, the AIADMK received 38 electoral bonds, including 29 from the CSK and 5 from TVS’s Srinivasan, which were credited on April 15, 2019. Of the CSK’s bonds, each was valued at Rs 10 lakh, except the first, worth Rs 1 crore, totalling Rs 3.8 crore. This is more than half of the Rs 6.05 crore the party got in April 2019.

Although the issuance dates for all 38 bonds are not specified, they were all concentrated in early April 2019, ahead of the elections.

Despite its dominant presence from 2011 to 2021, the AIADMK faced its worst electoral setbacks in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and the 2021 Assembly elections, amidst internal turmoil following the death of its leader J Jayalalithaa in 2016. The subsequent internal feud and a merger that ousted interim general secretary V K Sasikala by mid-2017 led to a critical phase of consolidation under then Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami’s leadership.

The CSK’s substantial stake in AIADMK’s electoral bonds, contrasted with its absence in DMK’s funding