The Evening Wrap: Why did SBI not give the ECI numbers of electoral bonds, Supreme Court asks

The Supreme Court on March 15 sought a response from the State Bank of India (SBI) on the non-disclosure of the unique alphanumeric numbers of individual electoral bonds to the Election Commission of India (ECI) for publication on its official website. “In our judgment of February 15, we had directed disclosure specifically of all the details of the electoral bonds, including date of their purchase, the amount, names of purchasers, the political parties which redeemed the bonds, etc. But the bank has not disclosed the numbers of the bonds purchased and encashed. Why?” Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, heading a five-judge Bench, asked during a special hearing. The court issued notice to the bank and listed the case on March 19. The Bench further agreed to return to the ECI documents regarding electoral bonds it had given the court on two past occasions in compliance with judicial orders passed on April 12, 2019 and November 2, 2023. The ECI had given these documents to the court in sealed envelopes and boxes. On February 15, the five-judge Bench, in its judgment, had directed the ECI to publish, along with the details of electoral bonds in its possession, the confidential information passed on to the court. However, the ECI had filed an application on March 14 saying that it had given the court the originals of the documents and not retained any copies. The ECI said it had handed over to the Supreme Court a sealed cover, which contained 106 sealed envelopes, and then sealed boxes containing a total of 523 sealed envelopes in two tranches in pursuance of the judicial orders of April 2019 and November 2023. “We presumed you would have retained copies,” Chief Justice Chandrachud addressed advocate Amit Sharma, appearing for the ECI. The court ordered its Registry to scan and digitise the copies of the documents in the course of the day and finish the work by tomorrow. The originals would be returned to the ECI along with a digitised copy. The ready availability of the digitised copy of the documents, that too taken by the Supreme Court itself, would help avert any delay in the publication of these records regarding the electoral bonds. The court, in its February 15 judgment, had required the SBI to provide the ECI with the complete details, including dates of purchase; the names of the purchasers; the denominations of the bonds purchased along with the details of bonds redeemed by political parties, including the dates of encashment and denominations of the electoral bonds. The SBI had said a total of 22,217 electoral bonds were purchased and 22,030 were redeemed by political parties between April 1, 2019 and February 15, 2024. Supreme Court refuses to stay appointments of Election Commissioners despite concerns The Supreme Court refused to stay the appointments of Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Gyanesh Kumar on Friday even as petitioners argued that the hurry and lack of transparency shown by the government has sent a wrong message that the two retired IAS officers are “favourable” to the regime in power. Appearing before a three-judge Bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna, the petitioners, represented by senior advocates Kapil Sibal, Vikas Singh, and advocate Prashant Bhushan, said the two appointments were made on March 14 by a new law, the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act of 2023. The 2023 Act bequeaths the government the dominant role in selecting Election Commissioners. They argued that the appointments of the new ECs were made while a challenge to the law was already pending in the apex court. However, the Bench was not impressed. It relied on a technical point that legislative enactments did not “normally” stay. “But this issue deals with the basic structure of the Constitution. Free and fair elections form the foundation of our democracy… There have been several occasions when this court has stayed the operation of a statute,” Singh urged. “Maybe in exceptional circumstances…” Justice Khanna replied. The court adjourned the case to March 22 while the Election Commission is expected to announce the Lok Sabha election dates this weekend. March 22 is the last working day before the court closes for Holi vacations. Listing out the series of circumstances which raised suspicions about the process of induction of the two Election Commissioners, advocate Prashant Bhushan said the government had deliberately advanced the meeting of the high-profile selection committee by a day to time the appointments ahead of the court hearing on March 15. The 2023 Act replaced the Chief Justice of India with a Cabinet Minister in the selection panel chaired by the Prime Minister. The petitioners argued that this law was enacted to get the better of a March 2023 Supreme Court judgment in the Anoop Baranwal case. The judgment had called for a fair and transparent appointments’ mechanism with the participation of the Chief Justice of India as a member of the selection committee. However, the petitioners argued that even this law, which favoured the government, was violated when the “minority” member of the selection committee and Leader of the largest Opposition party, Adhiranjan Chowdhury, found himself reduced to the status of a figurehead in the selection of the two Election Commissioners by a majority vote on March 14. Chowdhury was given 212 names of candidates only a day prior to the selection committee meeting. He told the media that he was provided the shortlisted candidates only 10 minutes before the appointment. This was a violation of Section 6 of the 2023 Act, which required the selection panel members to be given ample opportunity to make a considered decision on candidates. “The actions of the search committee as well as the Executive is a bald attempt at bulldozing its own pre-decided candidates through the selection committee without allowing reflection, conversation or debate on the possible choices of candidates,” the petitioners submitted. EC to announce poll schedule on March 16 The Election Commission of India (ECI) will on March 16 announce the schedule for elections to the Lok Sabha and some State Assemblies. The current Lok Sabha’s term ends on June 16 and a new House has to be constituted before that. The term of the Assemblies in Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Odisha is coming to an end on different dates in June. It remains to be seen whether the poll panel announces dates for Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir as well. The poll panel announced in a post on X, that a press conference to announce the schedule for Lok Sabha elections and some State Assemblies will be held at 3 p.m. on March 16. The announcement will be made by Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar. New Commissioners Gyanendra Kumar and Sukbir Singh Sandhu, who assumed office on March 15, will also be present. Nearly 97 crore people are eligible to cast vote in the upcoming polls at over 12 lakh polling stations. In 2019, the Lok Sabha polls were announced on March 10 and held in seven phases beginning April 11 and votes were counted on May 23. In the last parliamentary polls, the BJP had won 303 seats while the Congress got 52 seats. Electoral bonds data | Many top donors were under ED and Income Tax department scanner An analysis of firms which feature among the top purchasers of electoral bonds throws up many curious patterns. One of the common links is that a significant number of companies in the top donor list were under the Enforcement Directorate’s or the Income Tax (I-T) department’s scanner at some point of time in the past five years. In some cases, a chunk of the bonds were bought by these firms, in the days following such searches. The Future Gaming and Hotel Services PR was the largest donor to political parties via the electoral bond route, with a cumulative sum of ₹1,368 crore. In May 2023, the ED had carried out searches at the residence of Santiago Martin in Chennai, the well-known lottery magnate and the Managing Director of the company. The ED had also conducted searches at the business premises of the company in Coimbatore under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). A year earlier, on April 2, 2022, the ED had attached movable assets worth ₹410 crore under the PMLA in the case of lottery scam against the company and its subsidiaries. Interestingly, five days later, on April 7, 2022, the company made a significant purchase of electoral bonds worth ₹100 crore, marking one of their largest transactions on a single date. Of the ₹1,368 crore worth bonds purchased by the company, 50% were done before the ED searches and 50% after the searches. The other set of companies which followed a similar pattern are the Keventer Food Park Infra Ltd., the MKJ Enterprises Ltd. and the Madanlal Ltd. All these three firms are registered with the same address in Kolkata, West Bengal and have at least one common Director. The common Director is Siddharth Gupta, but the three companies were incorporated in different years. MKJ Enterprises was incorporated in 1982, Madanlal in 1983 and Keventer Food Park was incorporated in 2010. These three companies together donated about ₹573 crore — the third highest — if purchases are considered cumulatively. Of the ₹573 crore, ₹195 crore worth bonds were purchased by Keventer Food Park Infra Ltd. in three batches between April and May 2019. About ₹185 crore worth of bonds were purchased by Madanlal Ltd. between May 8 and 10, 2019. Keventer Agro, a company which shares its e-mail domain with Madanlal and MKJ Enterprises, ran into controversy following a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed by West Bengal Congress unit chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury after the State government’s sale of its stake in Metro Dairy to Keventer Agro in 2017. The West Bengal government had divested its 47% shares in Metro Dairy to Keventer Agro Limited for ₹85 crore in 2017. In the same year, a Singapore-based private equity fund had picked up 15% shares of Keventer Agro for ₹170 crore. Currently, Mayank Jalan is the Managing Director of Keventer Agro and is also a Director of Metro Dairy. The ED had started an investigation into the divestment of the West Bengal government’s stake in the Metro Dairy in 2019. Summons were issued to several officials of the State government, including H.K. Dwivedi, who was the State’s Finance Secretary in 2017, when the shares of Metro Dairy were divested. Summons were issued to State officials, including Dwivedi, in June 2020 and later in March 2021. In February 2021, searches were conducted by ED officials at the office of Keventer Agro Limited in Kolkata in connection with the probe. The investigation lost its steam after the Calcutta High Court in June 2022 dismissed the PIL plea filed by Choudhury alleging lack of transparency in the divestment. The Supreme Court in September 2022 had upheld the Calcutta High Court order. The Yashoda Super Specialty Hospital Group in Hyderabad, whose premises were searched by the Income Tax department in December 2020, had donated ₹162 crore in multiple tranches beginning October 2021 and ending in October 2023. Aurobindo Pharma’s Director Sarath Reddy was arrested by the ED on November 10, 2022, for his alleged involvement in irregularities in the scrapped liquor policy of the Delhi government. Five days after the arrest on November 15, the company had purchased bonds worth ₹5 crore. A year later in November 2023, it had purchased bonds worth ₹25 crore. In total the company had purchased electoral bonds worth ₹52 crore in multiple tranches between April 2021 and November 2023, of which ₹30 crore were done after Reddy’s arrest. On December 18, 2023, IT searches were conducted on Shirdi Sai Electricals Limited’s factory premises at the Industrial Development Area on the outskirts of Kadapa. The raids were also conducted simultaneously at the Hyderabad office and at its top officials’ residences. The company had purchased electoral bonds worth ₹40 crore on January 11, 2024. I-T searches were conducted at real estate development firm Kalpataru Projects International’s premises and residences of some of its directors and executives in August 2023. The company bought ₹25.5 crore worth electoral bonds between April 2023 and October 2023. Electoral bonds data | Congress demands SC-monitored probe into donations to BJP by companies raided by I-T and ED All India Congress Committee (AICC) president Mallikarjun Kharge demanded a Supreme Court-monitored special investigation into the electoral bonds scheme through which the ruling BJP encashed ₹6,065 crore over five years, and said the bank accounts of the BJP must be frozen till completion of the probe. He claimed that several companies purchased electoral bonds soon after they faced raids by Central agencies, such as the Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax Department. While the BJP has received the highest amount in electoral bonds from corporates, the bank account of the Congress, which received donations from party workers, was frozen. Kharge sought an investigation into alleged links between donation of funds by companies that were either raided by I-T and ED officials, or received notices from Central agencies, and funds received by the BJP. The Supreme Court monitored investigation is needed since the apex court has unanimously struck down the Centre’s electoral bond scheme. Data related to the electoral bonds was released by the State Bank of India and published by the Election Commission of India on March 14, following an order by the Supreme Court. Kharge said Prime Minister Narendra Modi claims credit for the government’s performance and all its schemes. “Though Mr. Modi proclaims na khaunga, na khane dunga (alluding — will not take a bribe, will not allow others to do so). However, the Supreme Court has exposed how the BJP has made money out of electoral bonds. SBI data shows that BJP received more than 50% of the donations while the Congress secured a meagre 11%,” said Kharge. Addressing mediapersons at the party office in Bengaluru on March 15, the AICC chief pointed to the bank accounts of Congress being frozen to highlight his claim of lack of a “level playing field”. “The Income Tax department was instructed to do this (freeze account of Congress), and nearly ₹300 crore of party’s funds are frozen,” he said. “How can we contest the election? You (BJP) are collecting crores of rupees from corporates through electoral bonds while Congress got donations from workers, MPs and other small donors. Our account is closed while their account is open. They got more than ₹6,000 crore while others got very little,” he said. “A special investigation is necessary to find out whether they got money in return for favours, or through harassment, or seeking donations in return for closure of cases.” Kharge claimed that those who faced ED and I-T raids have joined the BJP, and got party posts. “They become clean once they join the BJP,” the AICC chief said. India rejects U.S. remarks on Citizenship Amendment Act India on March 15 strongly trashed the criticism against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), including by the United States, and said “vote-bank politics” should not determine views about a “laudable initiative” to help those in distress. Rejecting the charges made by the U.S. State Department, the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said “Lectures by those who have a limited understanding of India’s pluralistic traditions and the region’s post Partition history are best not attempted.” “As regards the U.S. State Department’s statement on the implementation of the CAA, we are of the view that it is misplaced, misinformed and unwarranted,” the MEA spokesperson said at his weekly media briefing. The CAA, 2019 is in keeping with India’s inclusive traditions and long-standing commitment to human rights, he added. “The Act grants a safe haven to persecuted minorities belonging to the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh who entered India on or before December 31, 2014,” Jaiswal said. India, on March 11, notified the Citizenship Amendment Rules, 2024 four years after the law was passed. The legislation facilitates citizenship to undocumented people belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Parsi, Christian and Jain community from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, the rules state that the applicants will have to provide six types of documents and specify “date of entry” in India. During a daily briefing, U.S. State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said the country was “concerned” about the notification and will “closely monitor” how it is implemented. In Brief DMK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin has contended that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) only served to “legitimise Islamophobia”. He made this observation on a social media post on the occasion of the U.N. International Day to Combat Islamophobia, on March 15, 2024. “Since 2014, Union BJP Government’s reign has torn apart India’s secular fabric, fostering intolerance and endorsing discrimination against our Muslim community. Their implementation of unconstitutional acts like #CAA only serve to legitimise #Islamophobia,” Stalin charged. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [logo] The Evening Wrap 15 March 2024 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [[Arrow]Open in browser]( [[Mail icon]More newsletters]( Why did SBI not give the Election Commission numbers of electoral bonds to be made public, Supreme Court asks The Supreme Court on March 15 [sought a response from the State Bank of India (SBI)]( on the non-disclosure of the unique alphanumeric numbers of individual electoral bonds to the Election Commission of India (ECI) for publication on its official website. “In our judgment of February 15, we had directed disclosure specifically of all the details of the electoral bonds, including date of their purchase, the amount, names of purchasers, the political parties which redeemed the bonds, etc. But the bank has not disclosed the numbers of the bonds purchased and encashed. Why?” Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, heading a five-judge Bench, asked during a special hearing. The court issued notice to the bank and listed the case on March 19. The Bench further agreed to return to the ECI documents regarding electoral bonds it had given the court on two past occasions in compliance with judicial orders passed on April 12, 2019 and November 2, 2023. The ECI had given these documents to the court in sealed envelopes and boxes. On February 15, the five-judge Bench, in its judgment, had directed the ECI to publish, along with the details of electoral bonds in its possession, the confidential information passed on to the court. However, the ECI had filed an application on March 14 saying that it had given the court the originals of the documents and not retained any copies. The ECI said it had handed over to the Supreme Court a sealed cover, which contained 106 sealed envelopes, and then sealed boxes containing a total of 523 sealed envelopes in two tranches in pursuance of the judicial orders of April 2019 and November 2023. “We presumed you would have retained copies,” Chief Justice Chandrachud addressed advocate Amit Sharma, appearing for the ECI. The court ordered its Registry to scan and digitise the copies of the documents in the course of the day and finish the work by tomorrow. The originals would be returned to the ECI along with a digitised copy. The ready availability of the digitised copy of the documents, that too taken by the Supreme Court itself, would help avert any delay in the publication of these records regarding the electoral bonds. The court, in its February 15 judgment, had required the SBI to provide the ECI with the complete details, including dates of purchase; the names of the purchasers; the denominations of the bonds purchased along with the details of bonds redeemed by political parties, including the dates of encashment and denominations of the electoral bonds. The SBI had said a total of 22,217 electoral bonds were purchased and 22,030 were redeemed by political parties between April 1, 2019 and February 15, 2024. Supreme Court refuses to stay appointments of Election Commissioners despite concerns The Supreme Court [refused to stay the appointments of Election Commissioners]( Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Gyanesh Kumar on Friday even as petitioners argued that the hurry and lack of transparency shown by the government has sent a wrong message that the two retired IAS officers are “favourable” to the regime in power. Appearing before a three-judge Bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna, the petitioners, represented by senior advocates Kapil Sibal, Vikas Singh, and advocate Prashant Bhushan, said the two appointments were made on March 14 by a new law, the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act of 2023. The 2023 Act bequeaths the government the dominant role in selecting Election Commissioners. They argued that the appointments of the new ECs were made while a challenge to the law was already pending in the apex court. However, the Bench was not impressed. It relied on a technical point that legislative enactments did not “normally” stay. “But this issue deals with the basic structure of the Constitution. Free and fair elections form the foundation of our democracy… There have been several occasions when this court has stayed the operation of a statute,” Singh urged. “Maybe in exceptional circumstances…” Justice Khanna replied. The court adjourned the case to March 22 while the Election Commission is expected to announce the Lok Sabha election dates this weekend. March 22 is the last working day before the court closes for Holi vacations. Listing out the series of circumstances which raised suspicions about the process of induction of the two Election Commissioners, advocate Prashant Bhushan said the government had deliberately advanced the meeting of the high-profile selection committee by a day to time the appointments ahead of the court hearing on March 15. The 2023 Act replaced the Chief Justice of India with a Cabinet Minister in the selection panel chaired by the Prime Minister. The petitioners argued that this law was enacted to get the better of a March 2023 Supreme Court judgment in the Anoop Baranwal case. The judgment had called for a fair and transparent appointments’ mechanism with the participation of the Chief Justice of India as a member of the selection committee. However, the petitioners argued that even this law, which favoured the government, was violated when the “minority” member of the selection committee and Leader of the largest Opposition party, Adhiranjan Chowdhury, found himself reduced to the status of a figurehead in the selection of the two Election Commissioners by a majority vote on March 14. Chowdhury was given 212 names of candidates only a day prior to the selection committee meeting. He told the media that he was provided the shortlisted candidates only 10 minutes before the appointment. This was a violation of Section 6 of the 2023 Act, which required the selection panel members to be given ample opportunity to make a considered decision on candidates. “The actions of the search committee as well as the Executive is a bald attempt at bulldozing its own pre-decided candidates through the selection committee without allowing reflection, conversation or debate on the possible choices of candidates,” the petitioners submitted. EC to announce poll schedule on March 16 The [Election Commission of India (ECI) will on March 16 announce the schedule for elections]( to the Lok Sabha and some State Assemblies. The current Lok Sabha’s term ends on June 16 and a new House has to be constituted before that. The term of the Assemblies in Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Odisha is coming to an end on different dates in June. It remains to be seen whether the poll panel announces dates for Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir as well. The poll panel announced in a post on X, that a press conference to announce the schedule for Lok Sabha elections and some State Assemblies will be held at 3 p.m. on March 16. The announcement will be made by Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar. New Commissioners Gyanendra Kumar and Sukbir Singh Sandhu, who assumed office on March 15, will also be present. Nearly 97 crore people are eligible to cast vote in the upcoming polls at over 12 lakh polling stations. In 2019, the Lok Sabha polls were announced on March 10 and held in seven phases beginning April 11 and votes were counted on May 23. In the last parliamentary polls, the BJP had won 303 seats while the Congress got 52 seats. Electoral bonds data | Many top donors were under ED and Income Tax department scanner An analysis of firms which feature among the top purchasers of electoral bonds throws up many curious patterns. One of the common links is that [a significant number of companies in the top donor list were under the Enforcement Directorate’s or the Income Tax (I-T) department’s scanner]( at some point of time in the past five years. In some cases, a chunk of the bonds were bought by these firms, in the days following such searches. The Future Gaming and Hotel Services PR was the largest donor to political parties via the electoral bond route, with a cumulative sum of ₹1,368 crore. In May 2023, the ED had carried out searches at the residence of Santiago Martin in Chennai, the well-known lottery magnate and the Managing Director of the company. The ED had also conducted searches at the business premises of the company in Coimbatore under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). A year earlier, on April 2, 2022, the ED had attached movable assets worth ₹410 crore under the PMLA in the case of lottery scam against the company and its subsidiaries. Interestingly, five days later, on April 7, 2022, the company made a significant purchase of electoral bonds worth ₹100 crore, marking one of their largest transactions on a single date. Of the ₹1,368 crore worth bonds purchased by the company, 50% were done before the ED searches and 50% after the searches. The other set of companies which followed a similar pattern are the Keventer Food Park Infra Ltd., the MKJ Enterprises Ltd. and the Madanlal Ltd. All these three firms are registered with the same address in Kolkata, West Bengal and have at least one common Director. The common Director is Siddharth Gupta, but the three companies were incorporated in different years. MKJ Enterprises was incorporated in 1982, Madanlal in 1983 and Keventer Food Park was incorporated in 2010. These three companies together donated about ₹573 crore — the third highest — if purchases are considered cumulatively. Of the ₹573 crore, ₹195 crore worth bonds were purchased by Keventer Food Park Infra Ltd. in three batches between April and May 2019. About ₹185 crore worth of bonds were purchased by Madanlal Ltd. between May 8 and 10, 2019. Keventer Agro, a company which shares its e-mail domain with Madanlal and MKJ Enterprises, ran into controversy following a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed by West Bengal Congress unit chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury after the State government’s sale of its stake in Metro Dairy to Keventer Agro in 2017. The West Bengal government had divested its 47% shares in Metro Dairy to Keventer Agro Limited for ₹85 crore in 2017. In the same year, a Singapore-based private equity fund had picked up 15% shares of Keventer Agro for ₹170 crore. Currently, Mayank Jalan is the Managing Director of Keventer Agro and is also a Director of Metro Dairy. The ED had started an investigation into the divestment of the West Bengal government’s stake in the Metro Dairy in 2019. Summons were issued to several officials of the State government, including H.K. Dwivedi, who was the State’s Finance Secretary in 2017, when the shares of Metro Dairy were divested. Summons were issued to State officials, including Dwivedi, in June 2020 and later in March 2021. In February 2021, searches were conducted by ED officials at the office of Keventer Agro Limited in Kolkata in connection with the probe. The investigation lost its steam after the Calcutta High Court in June 2022 dismissed the PIL plea filed by Choudhury alleging lack of transparency in the divestment. The Supreme Court in September 2022 had upheld the Calcutta High Court order. The Yashoda Super Specialty Hospital Group in Hyderabad, whose premises were searched by the Income Tax department in December 2020, had donated ₹162 crore in multiple tranches beginning October 2021 and ending in October 2023. Aurobindo Pharma’s Director Sarath Reddy was arrested by the ED on November 10, 2022, for his alleged involvement in irregularities in the scrapped liquor policy of the Delhi government. Five days after the arrest on November 15, the company had purchased bonds worth ₹5 crore. A year later in November 2023, it had purchased bonds worth ₹25 crore. In total the company had purchased electoral bonds worth ₹52 crore in multiple tranches between April 2021 and November 2023, of which ₹30 crore were done after Reddy’s arrest. On December 18, 2023, IT searches were conducted on Shirdi Sai Electricals Limited’s factory premises at the Industrial Development Area on the outskirts of Kadapa. The raids were also conducted simultaneously at the Hyderabad office and at its top officials’ residences. The company had purchased electoral bonds worth ₹40 crore on January 11, 2024. I-T searches were conducted at real estate development firm Kalpataru Projects International’s premises and residences of some of its directors and executives in August 2023. The company bought ₹25.5 crore worth electoral bonds between April 2023 and October 2023. Electoral bonds data | Congress demands SC-monitored probe into donations to BJP by companies raided by I-T and ED All India Congress Committee (AICC) president Mallikarjun Kharge [demanded a Supreme Court-monitored special investigation]( into the electoral bonds scheme through which the ruling BJP encashed ₹6,065 crore over five years, and said the bank accounts of the BJP must be frozen till completion of the probe. He claimed that several companies purchased electoral bonds soon after they faced raids by Central agencies, such as the Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax Department. While the BJP has received the highest amount in electoral bonds from corporates, the bank account of the Congress, which received donations from party workers, was frozen. Kharge sought an investigation into alleged links between donation of funds by companies that were either raided by I-T and ED officials, or received notices from Central agencies, and funds received by the BJP. The Supreme Court monitored investigation is needed since the apex court has unanimously struck down the Centre’s electoral bond scheme. Data related to the electoral bonds was released by the State Bank of India and published by the Election Commission of India on March 14, following an order by the Supreme Court. Kharge said Prime Minister Narendra Modi claims credit for the government’s performance and all its schemes. “Though Mr. Modi proclaims na khaunga, na khane dunga (alluding — will not take a bribe, will not allow others to do so). However, the Supreme Court has exposed how the BJP has made money out of electoral bonds. SBI data shows that BJP received more than 50% of the donations while the Congress secured a meagre 11%,” said Kharge. Addressing mediapersons at the party office in Bengaluru on March 15, the AICC chief pointed to the bank accounts of Congress being frozen to highlight his claim of lack of a “level playing field”. “The Income Tax department was instructed to do this (freeze account of Congress), and nearly ₹300 crore of party’s funds are frozen,” he said. “How can we contest the election? You (BJP) are collecting crores of rupees from corporates through electoral bonds while Congress got donations from workers, MPs and other small donors. Our account is closed while their account is open. They got more than ₹6,000 crore while others got very little,” he said. “A special investigation is necessary to find out whether they got money in return for favours, or through harassment, or seeking donations in return for closure of cases.” Kharge claimed that those who faced ED and I-T raids have joined the BJP, and got party posts. “They become clean once they join the BJP,” the AICC chief said. India rejects U.S. remarks on Citizenship Amendment Act India on March 15 strongly trashed the criticism against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), [including by the United States]( and said “vote-bank politics” should not determine views about a “laudable initiative” to help those in distress. Rejecting the charges made by the U.S. State Department, the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said “Lectures by those who have a limited understanding of India’s pluralistic traditions and the region’s post Partition history are best not attempted.” “As regards the U.S. State Department’s statement on the implementation of the CAA, we are of the view that it is misplaced, misinformed and unwarranted,” the MEA spokesperson said at his weekly media briefing. The CAA, 2019 is in keeping with India’s inclusive traditions and long-standing commitment to human rights, he added. “The Act grants a safe haven to persecuted minorities belonging to the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh who entered India on or before December 31, 2014,” Jaiswal said. India, on March 11, notified the Citizenship Amendment Rules, 2024 four years after the law was passed. The legislation facilitates citizenship to undocumented people belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Parsi, Christian and Jain community from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, the rules state that the applicants will have to provide six types of documents and specify “date of entry” in India. During a daily briefing, U.S. State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said the country was “concerned” about the notification and will “closely monitor” how it is implemented. In Brief DMK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister [M.K. Stalin has contended]( that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) only served to “legitimise Islamophobia”. He made this observation on a social media post on the occasion of the U.N. International Day to Combat Islamophobia, on March 15, 2024. “Since 2014, Union BJP Government’s reign has torn apart India’s secular fabric, fostering intolerance and endorsing discrimination against our Muslim community. Their implementation of unconstitutional acts like #CAA only serve to legitimise #Islamophobia,” Stalin charged. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [Sign up for free]( Today’s Top Picks [[BRS MLC K. Kavitha arrested after ED searches at her Hyderabad residence] BRS MLC K. Kavitha arrested after ED searches at her Hyderabad residence]( [[Adani wind power project sparks concern in Sri Lanka’s Mannar district] Adani wind power project sparks concern in Sri Lanka’s Mannar district]( [[Customers can use FASTag using available balance, says Paytm Payments Bank] Customers can use FASTag using available balance, says Paytm Payments Bank]( [[PM Modi roadshow in Coimbatore | Madras High Court waves green flag] PM Modi roadshow in Coimbatore | Madras High Court waves green flag]( Copyright© 2024, THG PUBLISHING PVT LTD. 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