Maharashtra: Electoral bonds ruling won't affect BJP; we don't use power to make money, says Bawankule

Chandrashekhar Bawankule. File Pic

Maharashtra BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Thursday said that the Supreme Court's decision to hold the electoral bonds scheme unconstitutional will not affect his party as it does not "gain money through political power," reported the PTI.

Chandrashekhar Bawankule was replying to a question about the opposition taking swipes at the saffron party over the ruling as the electoral funding scheme was brought in by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.

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"The Supreme Court's verdict should be respected. It will not affect the BJP, as we do not gain money through political power. We do not have such 'sanskar' (values)," Chandrashekhar Bawankule told reporters, as per the PTI.

"Those who generate huge funds through political power and return to power by using such money, will be affected," he further said.

The state BJP chief was talking to the media at the legislature complex here after the party's three candidates filed nominations for the Rajya Sabha elections.
As all parties have enough MLAs, the election will likely be unopposed, he said.

Meanwhile, Electoral bonds have accounted for more than Rs 16,000 crore worth funds contributed to various political parties so far, a lion's share is estimated to have gone to the BJP, data shows, according to the PTI.

All political parties put together received more than Rs 12,000 crore till last fiscal since the introduction of the now-annulled electoral bond scheme in 2018, of which the ruling BJP got nearly 55 per cent or Rs 6,565 crore, according to the data available with Election Commission and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

While the party-wise data for the current fiscal 2023-24 would be available later after they file annual audit reports for the year, ADR put the collective amount of funds generated through sale of electoral bonds between March 2018 and January 2024 at Rs 16,518.11 crore.

On an average, these bonds are estimated to account for over half of total contributions received by the parties, though it is more than 90 per cent in case of some regional parties that are in power in their states.

In case of the BJP as well, electoral bonds account for more than half of its overall income.

The BJP replaced Congress as the country's richest party since the last year of UPA-II. It had total income of Rs 673.8 crore in fiscal year 2013-14, as against Rs 598 crore of the Congress.

Since then, BJP's income has mostly been rising while the Congress has seen its fortunes decline except for a few years in between.

In the year 2018-19, the first full fiscal after introduction of electoral bonds, BJP's income had more than doubled to Rs 2,410 crore (from Rs 1,027 crore), while that of the Congress also rose sharply from Rs 199 crore to Rs 918 crore.

During the last fiscal 2022-23, BJP's total income stood at Rs 2,360 crore, of which nearly Rs 1,300 crore came through electoral bonds. In the same year, the Congress saw its total income fall to Rs 452 crore, of which Rs 171 crore came through electoral bonds.

(with PTI inputs)