Electoral Bonds: Laxmi Mittal, Rahul Bhatia among top 10 individual political donors

Steel magnate Lakshmi Niwas Mittal, InterGlobe promoter Rahul Bhatia and founder of Biocon Limited are among the top individual donors of the now-scrapped electoral bonds used for making political donations.

The posted the data on electoral bonds on its website on March 14, a day ahead of the Supreme Court-fixed deadline.

According to the Election Commission data, UK-based executive chairman of ArcelorMittal, , purchased ₹35 crore worth of electoral bonds in his individual capacity. 

Inter Globe promoter Rahul Bhatia purchased bonds worth ₹ 20 crore in his individual capacity, the data shows. Additionally, Inter Globe group entities had purchased a total of 36 bonds of ₹ 1 crore each. The operates India’s largest airline, IndiGo.

In compliance with the SC order, the State Bank of India (SBI) handed over the electoral bonds data to the poll body earlier this week.

The Supreme Court struck down the 2018 Electoral Bond scheme on February 15, calling it “." In its ruling, the apex court had asked the SBI to furnish all the details related to electoral bonds with the ECI within a stipulated deadline.

Lakshmi Niwas Mittal: ₹ 35 crore

KR Raja JT: ₹25 crore

Rahul Bhatia: ₹20 crore

Inder Thakurdas Jaisinghani: ₹14 crore

Rajesh Mannalal Agrawal: ₹13 crore

Raju Kumar Sharma: ₹10 crore

Raju Jagannath Joshi: ₹10 crore

Harmesh Rahul Joshi: ₹10 crore

Anita Hemant Shah: ₹8.2 crore

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw: ₹6 crore