Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal labeled the electoral bonds scheme as a "very big scam" and urged the establishment of a special investigation team (SIT) comprising court-appointed officials to thoroughly investigate the alleged quid pro quo and misconduct associated with it.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who is currently spearheading the arguments for the petitioners in a case before the Supreme Court challenging electoral bonds, asserted during a press conference that the scheme is illegal and designed to disproportionately benefit a specific political party, rendering fair competition impossible for others.
Sibal's comments followed a recent move by the Election Commission (EC) to publish data regarding electoral bonds on its website. Criticizing the BJP-led government on this matter, Sibal remarked, The initiator of this scheme was our former finance minister, Arun Jaitley. He envisioned that through this method, no political entity could rival us (BJP), and unfortunately, he was proven correct. The one who has money can play the game.
The Rajya Sabha MP emphasized the necessity of investigating the allocation of donations to various political parties. The question is whom the bonds went to? The bond numbers can be found out, it is a matter of investigation, he said.
Asked about big business groups, such as Adani and Ambani, not featuring in the data, Sibal said, We are jumping the gun. There may be a connection between some of those big companies and subsidiaries or some other kind of companies. This is too early to answer. That is why I have never made an allegation against any company, be it the big two or anyone else.
In compliance with a Supreme Court order, the State Bank of India (SBI), the designated distributor of electoral bonds, provided the data to the Election Commission on March 12. The court had mandated the EC to upload this information on its website by 5 pm on Friday. According to the SBI, between April 1, 2019, and February 15 of the current year, donors purchased a total of 22,217 electoral bonds of various denominations, with political parties redeeming 22,030 of them.