"Rs 10 Crore Poll Bonds Were Sent To Office In 2019": Nitish Kumar's Party

The Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United) has told the Election Commission that someone delivered to its office an envelope with electoral bonds worth Rs 10 crore way back in 2019, which it encashed within days but has got no information on the donors.

As the Election Commission on Sunday made public hundreds of sealed-cover disclosures submitted to it by various political parties, filings made by Bihar's ruling party showed that it got electoral bonds totalling more than Rs 24 crore.

The party also disclosed the names of Bharti Airtel and Shree Cement as its donors for bonds with Rs 1 crore and Rs 2 crore, respectively.

In another filing, the JD(U) disclosed donations totalling Rs 24.4 crore through these bonds, many of which were issued from SBI branches in Hyderabad and Kolkata, and a few were issued in Patna.

However, the most interesting filing was made by the Bihar office of the party which said it was not aware about the details of the donors of the bonds received at its Patna office on April 3, 2019, and neither it tried to know because at that time there was no order from the Supreme Court.

"Somebody came to our office on 03-04-2019 at Patna and handed over a sealed envelope and when it was opened we found a bunch of electoral bonds containing 10 bonds of Rs 1 crore each.

"Accordingly, as per gazette notification of the Government of India, we opened an account in SBI Main Branch, Patna, and deposited it, which was credited to our party account on 10-04-2019. In this view of the situation, we are unable to provide any more details about the donors," the JD(U) said.

In the same submission, the party listed Shri Cement and Bharti Airtel as its other donors.

In one of its filing, the Samajwadi Party disclosed total donations worth Rs 10.84 crore, of which, it said, 10 bonds, totalling Rs 10 crore, was received "by post (no name)".

For the remainder amount, the Akhilesh Yadav-led party listed S K traders, San Beverages, A K Traders, K S Traders, B G Traders and AS Traders as donors.

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