Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he brought electoral bonds and hence the source of the funding is known today. Can any agency tell us how much money was spent in elections before 2014, Modi asked in his exclusive interview with Thanthi TV. “Thanks to electoral bonds now we can trace the source of funding. Nothing is perfect, imperfections can be addressed,” PM Modi said. The electoral bonds scheme was introduced in 2017 to facilitate transparent funding of political parties. On February 15, this year the Supreme Court struck down the scheme and asked the Election Commission to release the funding data.

The data revealed that political parties received crores from top corporates in the country. Future Gaming and Hotel Services purchased possibly the highest amount of bonds worth ₹1,368 crore, followed by Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd at ₹966 crore. BJP got 84% of electoral bonds bought by the top 10 individual donors. The second biggest recipient was the Trinamool Congress which got ₹16.2 crore or about 9% of the money. The third biggest was the Bharat Rashtra Samithi with ₹5 crore.

During the interview, Modi was asked whether he thinks the electoral bonds data caused any setback to his party. “What have I done that there would be any setback? I am certain that those who are dancing today (over electoral bonds) will regret it. I want to ask all experts which agency can find the trail of the money used in elections before 2014. There must have been some expenditure. Modi came up with electoral bonds and so today you know who funded how much to whom,” PM Modi said.

Earlier, Union home minister Amit Shah expressed a similar opinion that instead of completely scrapping the electoral bonds scheme, it should have been improved as it was introduced to end the influence of black money in Indian politics.

Ahead of the elections, the electoral bonds data became a major political flashpoint as the Congress claimed that all corporates flocked to give money to the BJP after they were raided by ED or CBI. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman countered and said this link was only based on assumptions. “I think you’ve based yourself on huge assumptions that the money was given after the Enforcement Directorate raid happened,” Sitharaman said.