Fresh Electoral Bonds Data From Political Parties Released By ECI: Lottery King Martin's Future Gaming Top Donor Of DMK

The Election Commission of India (ECI) disclosed more data on the electoral bonds on Sunday (17 March) revealing that Tamil Nadu's ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) received Rs 509 crore from Future Gaming and Hotel Services.

This is interesting because DMK received a total fund of Rs 656.5 crore with lottery king Santiago Martin's Future Gaming donating more than three-fourths of this total amount.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) received the maximum amount of Rs 6,986.5 crore through electoral bonds since they were introduced in 2018 as the latest data also adds up bonds of before 12 April 2019.

West Bengal's ruling party Trinamool Congress (TMC) ranked two with Rs 1,397 crore received, followed by Congress at Rs 1,334 crore and Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi (BRS) at Rs 1,322 crore.

Then comes Odisha's ruling party Biju Janata Dal (BJD) with Rs 944.5 crore received, DMK with Rs 656.5 crore and Andhra Pradesh's ruling party YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) with Rs 442.8 crore.

Future Gaming bought electoral bonds of Rs 1,368 crore and donated nearly 37 per cent of it to the DMK. The other major donor of DMK was Megha Engineering with Rs 105 crore.

We have this information because DMK was one of the few political parties that chose to reveal its donors' details while most political parties did not do so, The New Indian Express reported.

The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) got bonds worth Rs 181.35 crore, Janata Dal (Secular) [JD(S)] of Rs 89.75 crore, Shiv Sena of Rs 60.4 crore and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Of Rs 56 crore.

The parties who received less amount through electoral bonds are Samajwadi Party with Rs 14.05 crore, Shiromani Akali Dal with Rs 7.26 crore, AIADMK with Rs 6.05 crore and National Conference Rs 50 lakh.