Electoral bonds: For BJP, fund flow was year-round, Cong and TMC saw spikes in and around polls

The BJP, the ruling party at the Centre since 2014, has been the biggest beneficiary of electoral bonds, redeeming a total of Rs 6,061 crore between April 2019 and February 2024, according to data published by the Election Commission and the State Bank of India (SBI). Trailing behind the BJP are the Trinamool Congress (TMC) at Rs 1,610 crore and the Congress at Rs 1,422 crore for the same period.

An analysis of each party’s redemptions reveals a telling pattern: while the BJP cashed in significant amounts with almost every tranche, the TMC and the Congress’s fortunes were more closely linked to elections and, in particular, election victories.

Between April 2019 and February 2024, the SBI issued electoral bonds in 22 tranches. Across these tranches, the BJP redeemed an average Rs 275.5 crore in each window, about three times more than the average for the TMC at Rs 73.2 crore and the Congress at Rs 64.6 crore.

For the tranches in April and May 2019, before the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP redeemed Rs 1,772 crore, which accounts for 29.2% of the party’s total redemption since April 2019. In contrast, the Congress redeemed just Rs 168.6 crore and the TMC Rs 51.7 crore during the general elections.

After a lull in the July 2019 tranche, the BJP saw a major spike in redemptions in October 2019 when it received Rs 185.2 crore. The Congress redeemed just Rs 1.8 crore. This window came prior to the Assembly polls in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand. While the BJP won in Haryana, with support from the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), and in Maharashtra with ally Shiv Sena (undivided at the time), the Congress-Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) alliance came to power in Jharkhand.

During the Covid-affected tranches of October 2020 and January