According to the electoral bond data uploaded by the Election Commission (EC), the All India Trinamool Congress (AITMC) redeemed poll bonds totalling Rs 1609 crore between April 2019 and January 2024.

This makes TMC the second largest recipient of such donations to political parties between April 2019 and January 2024.

In October-November 2020 and January 2021, the party redeemed 65 electoral bonds worth Rs 43.4 crore – this was also the first year of the Covid pandemic, the data suggests.

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Assembly elections were held in West Bengal between March 27 and April 29, 2021. In April, the AITMC redeemed 171 electoral bonds worth Rs 55.44 crore – up from the months preceding the elections. But in July, after the party rode back to power at the head of a landslide – the election results were declared on May 2 – it redeemed 337 electoral bonds totalling Rs 107.56 crore.

In October 2021, the redemptions totalled Rs 141.92 crore and in January 2022, it was Rs 224 crore. Thereafter, there was a brief dip in the redemption of poll bonds. In April 2022, the AIMTC redeemed bonds of Rs 18 crore. In July 2022, that figure rose to Rs 66.5 crore. And in October 2022, the party redeemed poll bonds totalling Rs 143 crore.

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However, TMC, in their electoral bond disclosure for 2018-19, said some anonymous persons dropped/handed over sealed envelopes in their respective offices in Kolkata and therefore, they were unaware of who made the donations, Times of India reported.

TMC did not disclose the identities of donors who collectively donated nearly Rs 75 crore through electoral bonds to the party between July 16, 2018 and May 22, 2019.

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“Most of these bonds were sent to our office and dropped in the drop box or sent through messengers from various persons who wished to support our party, many of whom prefer to remain anonymous. Thus, we are not in the possession of names and other details of the buyers,” TMC said in its submission to EC on May 27, 2019, TOI reported.