Top three electoral bond buyers that donated to the major political parties between 2019 and 2024 under the now-scrapped poll bond scheme are corporate entities that faced investigations by the Income-Tax department and the Enforcement Directorate. According to an Indian Express report, the top three donors are – infra firm Megha Engineering, Future Gaming and mining giant Vedanta.
Future Gaming and Hotels Pvt Ltd is at the top spot in the buyers list. According to the data uploaded by the poll panel on its website, the company run by Santiago Martin bought electoral bonds worth Rs 1,300 crore in last five years. What’s interesting is that the Enforcement Directorate had launched an investigation against Future Gaming way back in 2019. By July of 2019, the ED had attached Future Gaming’s assets worth over Rs 250 crore. The IE report says that till April 2022, the probe agency had also attached movable assets of the company worth Rs 409.92 crore.
The IE report says that five days after ED attached the movable assets, Future Gaming purchased Rs 100 crore in electoral bonds on April 7, 2022.
Case against Santiago Martin
As per the Enforcement Directorate, Future Gaming’s boss and others were part of the criminal conspiracy to violate the Lottery Regulation Act, 1998 provisions. It was also alleged that the company willfully cheated Sikkim Government for ‘wrongful gain’.
Before April, 2022, Future Gaming had bought its first tranche of poll bonds in October, 2020.
Megha Engineering and Infrastructures and the many probes
After Future Gaming, the second biggest poll bond buyer ss Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Ltd (MEIL). This Hyderabad-base company purchased bonds worth Rs 1,000 crore. The Indian Express report says that Income Tax department conducted raids at the offices of Megha Engineering in October 2019, the company. After this, the ED also launched a probe against the company. Notably, on April 12, 2019, Megha Engineering bought electoral bonds worth Rs 50 crore.
Vedanta and mine of investigations
Anil Aggarwal’s Vedanta Group is the fifth largest buyer of the electoral bonds. According to the official data, Vedanta bought bonds worth Rs 376 crore. The first batch of bonds were bought in April, 2019.
The IE report says that in 2018, the Enforcement Directorate had said that it had proofs regarding Vedanta’s alleged link in the bribe-for-visa case. This case pertain to a group of Chinese nationals were granted visas by alleged tweaking of rules.
After a 2022 case of corruption, the ED launched a money laundering investigation. In April, 2019, the mining giant had bought bonds worth over Rs 39 crore.
In the period of next four years, except for the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, till November 2023, Vedanta had purchased bonds worth Rs 337 crore. With this, the cumulative value of bonds purchased by Vedanta went over Rs 376 crore.