Relatively unknown companies and several big business houses figured in the list of purchasers of electoral bonds submitted by the State Bank of India to the Election Commission.

Surprisingly, the top purchaser was Coimbatore-based lottery company Future Gaming and Hotel Services Pvt Ltd, with bonds worth Rs 1,368 crore bought in 21 bouts between 21 October 2020 and 9 January 2024. The company is run by lottery king Santiago Martin and faced Enforcement and Income Tax probes.

The second largest donor to political parties is Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Ltd (MEIL) which bought bonds worth Rs 966 crore, data released by the Election Commission on Thursday showed. 

MEIL, run by Krishna Reddy, is present in verticals like hydrocarbons, transportation, power, irrigation, drinking water and manufacturing.

Megha Engineering is involved in marquee projects of the Telangana government such as the Kaleswaram Dam project, according to a report by The Indian Express. It is also building the Zojila tunnel and the Polavaram dam.

Following this were Navi Mumbai-based logistic firm Qwik Supply Chain Pvt Ltd (Rs 410 crore), Haldia Energy (Rs 377 crore) and Anil Agarwal’s mining and metals giant Vedanta (Rs 376 crore).

Bharti Group came next with donation of Rs 247 crore, followed by Essel Mining And Inds Ltd at Rs 224 crore. Western UP Power Transmission Company Ltd contributed Rs 220 crore while Keventer Foodpark Infra Ltd, gave Rs 195 crore and Madanlal Ltd Rs 185 crore.

The list also figured names of tycoons and large corporate groups like London-based billionaire Lakshmi Niwas Mittal, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Auto and Bajaj Finance, DLF group, Dilip Shanghvi’s Sun Pharmaceuticals, Cipla, Kumar Mangalam Birla’s Grasim Industries and Century Textiles, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, Piramal Enterprises, Apollo Tyres and Goa-based Dempo Industries.

Aditya Birla firm Essel Mining purchased electoral bonds amounting to Rs 220 crore while group firm UltraTech Cement bought Rs 35 crore worth of bonds. Utkal Alumina, another Birla group company, purchased bonds worth nearly Rs 147 crore, The Telegraph reported.

Financial services giants like Muthoot Finance and Edelweiss, Gujarat-based Torrent Pharmaceuticals and Torrent Power, film exhibitor PVR and TVS Motors also bought electoral bonds.

The SBI data released by the Election Commission showed that the parties that encashed electoral bonds included the BJP, Trinamul Congress, Congress, AIADMK, BRS, Shiv Sena, TDP, YSR Congress, DMK, JDS, NCP, JDU, RJD, AAP and the Samajwadi Party.

"The Election Commission of India has today uploaded the data on electoral bonds on its website as received from SBI on 'as is where is basis'", the poll body said in a statement. 

"It may be recalled that in the said matter, ECI has consistently and categorically weighed in favour of disclosure and transparency, a position reflected in the proceedings of the Hon'ble Supreme Court and noted in the order also," it added. 

The SBI, however, did not mention the serial numbers of the bonds. This would have helped to figure out who donated, and how much, to which political party.

In total 22,217 bonds were purchased between 1 April 2019 and 15 February 2024 and 22,030 bonds were encashed by political parties during this period.

The electoral bonds were available in denominations from Rs 1,000 up to Rs 1 crore. With 11,671 entries, the Rs 1 crore bond was the most sought after. 

The SBI supplied this data in two sets. The first set contains the date of purchase of each electoral bond, the name of the purchaser of the bond, and the denomination of the bond purchased. 

The second part contains the names of the political parties that cashed the bonds, with denominations and dates.