The sale of the 29th tranche of electoral bonds began immediately, November 6. The newest spherical of electoral bonds, which comes amid meeting elections in 5 states together with Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram, is available in a brief interval of a couple of month after the twenty eighth section, which opened on the market on October 4.
“Government of India has authorised State Bank of India (SBI), in the XXIX Phase of sale, to issue and encash Electoral Bonds through its 29 Authorised Branches w.e.f. November 6-20, 2023,” the finance ministry final week stated in an announcement.
What Are Electoral Bonds?
Electoral bonds have been pitched as an alternative choice to money donations made to political events as half of efforts to convey transparency to political funding.
The bonds had been launched in 2017 to cleanse the system of political funding within the nation. In his Budget Speech on February 1, 2017, then finance minister Arun Jaitley stated: “Even 70 years after Independence, the country has not been able to evolve a transparent method of funding political parties which is vital to the system of free and fair elections…Political parties continue to receive most of their funds through anonymous donations which are shown in cash. An effort, therefore, requires to be made to cleanse the system of political funding in India.”
Who Can Buy Electoral Bonds?
These bonds could be purchased by any citizen of India or entity integrated or established within the nation. An individual can purchase the bonds, both singly or collectively with different people. The purchaser can be allowed to purchase an electoral bond(s) solely on due fulfilment of all of the extant KYC norms and by making fee from a checking account. It won’t carry the title of the payee.
The bonds can be found for buy for a interval of 10 days every within the months of January, April, July and October. Now, the electoral bonds could be purchased between October 4 and October 13.
Who Can Receive Electoral Bonds?
Only the political events registered beneath Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and that secured not lower than one per cent of the votes polled within the final Lok Sabha or state elections, are eligible to obtain the electoral bonds.
How To Purchase Electoral Bonds?
The bonds could be purchased from the 29 authorised branches of the federal government-owned State Bank of India (SBI) in multiples of Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore. The authorised SBI branches are in Lucknow, Shimla, Dehradun Kolkata, Guwahati, Chennai, Patna, New Delhi, Chandigarh, Srinagar, Gandhinagar, Bhopal, Raipur, and Mumbai.
The receiving political social gathering can redeem the bonds inside 15 days of the date of problem. If the bonds will not be redeemed inside 15 days, no fee is made to the social gathering. The redeemed quantity is credited into the political social gathering’s account on the identical day because the bond is deposited with the financial institution. The electoral bonds might be encashed by an eligible political social gathering solely by way of a checking account with the authorised financial institution.
The electoral bonds could be purchased from any authorised department of SBI by paying digitally or by way of a cheque. Cash just isn’t allowed. The donor then can hand over the bonds to the political social gathering of his/ her selection, which may encash them inside 15 days of the date of problem.
The authorities authorised the issuance of the newest spherical of electoral bonds, days after the Supreme Court reserved its verdict on a batch of petitions difficult the validity of the electoral bonds scheme for funding political events. On October 31, a 5-decide structure bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai, J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra commenced listening to arguments on the 4 petitions, together with these filed by Congress chief Jaya Thakur, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
After the detailed listening to on the matter, the apex courtroom reserved the judgement on November 2. Two days after this, the federal government issued notification for issuance of newest spherical electoral bonds. It is to be famous that Mizoram and the primary section of Chhattisgarh meeting polls are to be held on November 7. The polling in all these 5 states would finish on November 30, and counting of votes can be performed on December 3.
