Black Money Bazaar: How Electoral Bonds Became a Corruption Bonanza

Narrating a scene from Bertolt Brecht’s famous play has become very important now, a well-known play. In 1937, Brecht wrote the play – ‘The Life of Galileo’. In one scene, Galileo’s student Andrei says – ‘Unhappy the land that has no heroes’ means that the country is unhappy, and has no heroes. Galileo, the protagonist of the play upon entering the place hears this remained silent for a while, and after sometime, Galileo is heard saying, ‘Unhappy the land that needs heroes’, means, the country that needs heroes is the most unhappy. Through these two dialogues, all the stories of today’s times can be narrated. The fight of two ideas, the debate of two thoughts. Sometimes, we try to find heroes in Narendra Modi or sometimes in Abhijit Gangopadhyay that all our grievances and unhappiness can be solved by a single hero. Whether it is the question of corruption or violence against women, we think of trusting a hero more than ourselves. If that hero also uses the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or Extortion Department or ED we forget to ask questions because we are busy looking for the hero. We are busy making messiahs. We’ve been waiting since 2014 for a Nayak to change everything.

From the year 2011, every day there was news in the mainstream media about the corruption of the Congress. The everyday face of the anti-BJP Prime Minister was stabbing the ruling Congress on the issue of corruption, on the other hand, what was going on in Delhi, the so-called non-political faces like Anna Hazare were raising voices from the civil society, we needed a corruption-free India. A narrative was being created that only Narendra Modi could be trusted to get rid of such corruption. Who alone can build a new India, can build a corruption-free India? Then came the elections, ousting the Congress, and proving all the narratives true, BJP came to power. Everyone was very excited that this will be a new India, a corruption-free India. Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister, giving the slogan, ‘Na Khaunga, Na Khane Dunga’, meaning do not corrupt yourself, do not allow anyone to do corruption. Walking the talk, suddenly one day in 2016 the announcement came that all ongoing currency notes were demonetised. His announcement cancelled all old notes of 500 and 1000 rupees. He said that those who do not have black money have no reason to fear. Terrorism was supported with this black money. So if it stops, terrorism will also stop. It is said that those who have the money should go to the bank and either change it or deposit it. Everyone started thinking that ‘maybe the man next door is the owner of black money, I will have trouble for some time, but that man must throw the money in the water or burn it’. Everyone thought that all the black money would come out now. All the stolen money will be caught now. But what happened was that all the small businesses closed down, and the big industrialists got richer. Not long after that, the then-finance minister suggested that the electoral system should be made transparent. Until now all political parties used to deal in cash, now an ‘Electoral Bond’ is being introduced, through which no one will know who is supporting those political parties. So there is no question of getting benefits in exchange for that money. The opposition started saying that this would lead to more corruption, so this system should be stopped. The case went to the highest court in the country. Six years passed and the court did not even hear the case, while the opposition’s objections continued to increase. Then a five-member constitution bench of the country’s highest court heard the case and stayed the verdict for some time.

Then on February 15, the Supreme Court declared the ‘electoral bonds’ unconstitutional and ordered the State Bank of India, which claims to be the ‘Banker To Every Indian’, through which the bonds were bought and sold, to immediately disclose the names of who bought the bonds and who the beneficiaries were. After much deliberation, SBI finally deposited the names (donor and recipient) in two completely different envelopes, separately, which the Election Commission, following the court’s order, released to the public on their website.

Now, the fun began. As soon as the list of names was published, several people, who are still in ‘journalism’ and don’t think bootlicking is journalism, came down to compile this information. Some terrible information was revealed, which shocked the whole country. The information that has been published has not included the data from March 2018 to 2019, but the information that has come after that, it can be said for sure that ‘Electoral Bond’ is the biggest government-sponsored corruption in independent India.

As it turns out, many companies and many individuals have bought crores of `electoral bonds’.

A company, Future Gaming and Hotel Services, owned by Santiago Martin alone bought bonds worth Rs 1,368 crore. On further investigation, it appears that this organization is a daily lottery organization. They are Daily Online Lottery Vendors in many Northeast States and Tamil Nadu in South India. In 2015, Santiago Martin’s son joined the BJP. Before that, the ED and CBI went to the headquarters of the agency. After that, it is seen that the company bought 1368 crore bonds in 7 days.

Another company name is Megha Engineering. A news media called TV 9 is in collusion with this organization, which is quoted as building roads and infrastructure at the border. It has been seen that they bought bonds worth 980 crore rupees. Elections are coming up, and this time most of the media are showing opinion polls about which party will win. TV 9 is also showing it. Naturally, the BJP is winning the election with a huge majority, so after this information comes out today, what is left to understand is that these opinion polls are not being shown to know the public opinion but to form the public opinion and it is done by those Megha engineers and their money. In third place is Vedanta Group, which gave Rs. 400 crores. What did you give for? It doesn’t take any calculus to understand that they paid this money to get the benefits of the Water Land Jungle, a company that is a very familiar name.

There are also many other organizations. Those who bought bonds above 100 crores. Sudhir Mehta’s Torrent Group bought bonds worth Tk 185 crore. In 2019, Devendra Fadnavis, the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra, waived a property tax of Rs 285 crore on the company. Now say the BJP is an honest party, their leaders are very honest.

Where did the money they gave to the MLAs of Eknath Shinde to topple the Uddhav Thackeray government in Maharashtra come from? Many may have tried to find the names of Adani and Ambani. A word should be said for them. Companies like Adani or Ambani never directly buy bonds in their name. However, it appears that several people associated with their organization have personally bought these bonds. Lakshmidas Vallabhbhai Merchant, in 2023, paid Rs 25 crore in one hit in November, through this electoral bond. He is also the head of the News 18 news agency. Whose News 18? Everyone knows it is Reliance. A little search can be seen on LinkedIn. Now News 18 is showing that BJP can get 400 seats in the next elections. Now do the math. Then think about why the BJP creates such ideas with this media.

Some information is given here. It is not possible to give everything in one text. It is understood that money has been withdrawn in two ways. One is that the official citation has been obtained by withdrawing the money. Second, by sending ED and CBI, the money has been siphoned off by fear-mongering. One more thing needs to be said here. The money that was not redeemed in the ‘electoral bond’ went to the PM CARES fund, which cannot be audited, it is said. It means that the money is not coming from this side but it has been deposited in the same BJP fund from that side. More news about this will come very soon. But more than that, why is this discussion not being widely circulated in the media? Why is this electoral bond scam not making big headlines in the daily papers like the Congress corruption in 2011? So in the name of journalism, what they are doing is protecting the BJP and promoting it? So what are they, journalists? They should not say anything except the moderators, who are sitting on their channel every night, directly or indirectly, and are blaspheming in the name of journalism. Hate, hate and fake news are spreading.

To go back, again to Brecht. Since 2011, we have been looking for a ‘Messiah’ to curb corruption to prevent violence against women. I hope that the Messiah will come and save us. The media has supported that thinking. Sometimes we think of Narendra Modi and sometimes Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay as the saviour. One has become a saviour himself a panda in the Tolabaji cycle and the other wants to take his hand in curbing corruption. While searching for the thief every evening, we don’t even realize when the thief has entered our brains with the help of those media. Do we understand, or rather want to say, that the media that spread hate all the time, the media that spread lies all the time, is running on the money of this electoral bond called Tolabaji Chakra or Extortion Racket?