Chennai Super Kings Latest News: Even as Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings is gearing up for the mega showdown against Royal Challengers Bangalore on March 22, the latest Electoral Bond revelations have put spotlight on the franchise’s parent company India Cements.
According to an Indian Express report, Chennai Super Kings Cricket Limited was number 1 donor for the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in 2019. The donation coincides with the schedule of the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections. The report said that apart from India Cements, Gopal Srinivasan of TVS Group was among the prominent poll bond buyers for AIADMK. It is the same period when AIADMK was struggling with in-fighting and trying to save its political turf in wake of Jayaram Jayalalithaa’s demise.
The latest SBI data, which was uploaded by the Election Commission on its website shows that in total, the AIADMK got received 38 poll since 2019. Of these, 29 were from Chennai Super Kings and five were from Srinivasan of TVS Group.
These poll bonds were credited in April, 2019, the EC data shows. Out of the total 29 bonds bought by CSK, each was valued at Rs 10 lakh. The only exception was the first bond, which was valued at Rs 1 crore. According to the data, Rs 3.8 crore worth of poll bonds were bought by the CSK. This is more than half of the Rs 6.05 crore the AIADMK got in April 2019.
As against Chennai Super Kings’ significant stake in AIADMK’s poll bonds, N Srinivasan didn’t invest anything in DMK. The India Cements owner is known to be close to the DMK camp.