Bharti Airtel, subsidiary Bharti Telemedia donated around Rs 234 crore to BJP via electoral bonds

Bharti Airtel and its subsidiary Bharti Telemedia bought around Rs 235 crore of electoral bonds and donated all but about Rs 1 crore to the ruling BJP, according to data released by the Election Commission. Bharti Airtel donated nearly Rs 197.5 crore to BJP, Rs 50 lakh to J&K National Conference, and Rs 10 lakh to Rashtriya Janata Dal.

Bharti Telemedia, which is a subsidiary of the Sunil Mittal-led telecom firm Bharti Airtel, donated bonds worth Rs 37 crore to BJP, the data showed.

In all, the two Bharti Group entities donated about Rs 234 crore to BJP, via electoral bonds.

A mail sent to Bharti Airtel for comments did not elicit a response.

Meanwhile, in a sharp contrast to big corporate houses that gave large sums to political parties, IT companies in India donated just around Rs 15 crore to various political parties through electoral bonds, as per the data.

In the IT pack, Cyient contributed the most – donating Rs 10 crore to BJP, while Zensar Technologies contributed Rs 3 crore to the party, as per electoral bond data. The Election Commission made public a fresh data set of electoral bonds, including their alpha-numeric numbers that helps match their purchasers with the political parties that received the funds.

BJP remained a major beneficiary of electoral bonds purchased by big corporate groups like Vedanta, Bharti Airtel, Muthoot, Baja Auto, Jindal group and TVS Motor, the data showed.