"Accounts of BJP should be seized": Sachin Pilot on electoral bonds

Congress leader Sachin Pilot on Sunday welcomed the Supreme Court's verdict on electoral bonds and said that BJP should explain the profits they gained through it.

He also demanded that the accounts of the BJP 'should be seized.'

"The decision of the Supreme Court is welcomed. The BJP should clarify how much they have earned through this scam. The accounts of the Congress party are being seized but the Income Tax is not taking action against the BJP for earning thousands of crores through illegal bonds," he said while speaking to the media in Mumbai.


"The accounts of the BJP should be seized," the Congress leader said.

The Election Commission of India on Sunday made public fresh data on electoral bonds, which was previously submitted to the Supreme Court in sealed covers, following a directive from the apex court to make it available to the public.

"The Election Commission of India has today uploaded the data received in digitized form from the registry of the Supreme Court on electoral bonds on its website," the poll panel said in a statement.

The ECI had submitted it in the sealed covers to the Supreme Court and was later asked to put them in the public domain.

Notably, this information pertains to transactions that occurred before April 12, 2019, while details of electoral bonds issued after this date were disclosed by the Election Commission last week.

According to the new details, DMK received Rs 656.5 crore through electoral bonds, including Rs 509 crore from lottery king Santiago Martin's Future Gaming. BJP encashed electoral bonds totalling Rs 6,986.5 crore.

The highest amount received by the ruling party was in 2019-20 worth Rs. 2,555 crore. Congress redeemed a total of Rs. 1,334.35 crore through electoral bonds.

The Supreme Court, in a ruling in February, struck down the Centre's Electoral Bond Scheme, which allowed for anonymous funding to political parties, and ordered the SBI to stop issuing Electoral Bonds immediately.

On March 14, the Election Commission uploaded data on electoral bonds on its website as received from SBI.