'He lied…': Jairam's attack over Modi's statement on electoral bonds
Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh on Monday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has "fully lied to the nation in his latest interview" with Tamil television channel Thanthi TV. In an interview released on Sunday, PM Modi said, "If a trail is available today, it is because of the presence of bonds." The prime minister asked whether any agency could tell about the sources of funding and their beneficiaries for the polls before 2014—the year he came to power.
Why does this story matter?
The electoral bonds scheme—launched by Modi's government in January 2018—was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in February 2024. Following this ruling, the court instructed the State Bank of India (SBI), which had been selling electoral bonds to donors, to disclose all relevant details to the Election Commission of India (ECI). This information was subsequently made available on the ECI's website.
Ramesh challenges Modi's transparency claim on electoral bonds
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Ramesh disputed Modi's claim that the origins and application of funds were made transparent by the electoral bonds scheme. "The scheme was designed to be fully anonymous...Modi wanted to hide from the public the details of 'where funds have come from," he said. The Rajya Sabha MP further noted that during the six-year span from 2018 to 2024, no information regarding which party received funds from specific donors was disclosed to the public.
Read: Ramesh's statement on X
Ramesh accuses SBI of dishonesty over donor data
Ramesh also accused the "remote-controlled" SBI of "lying" to the court when it sought a three-month extension to align donor data with political parties. He claimed that his team needed only "five lines of Python code and less than fifteen seconds" to match each donor with their corresponding political party. "It was only the Supreme Court's strong intervention that forced the SBI to release the data publicly within days," Ramesh added.
BJP primary beneficiary of electoral bonds, alleges Ramesh
In response to PM Modi's denial that his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party would suffer due to electoral bonds, Ramesh reiterated allegations of "quid pro quo" between the BJP and its donors. The BJP, having received donations exceeding ₹8000 crore, was the primary beneficiary of this scheme. Ramesh said, "The data has revealed your party and government's monumental corruption. The corruption was known for a while; the setback is that there are now hard numbers to prove it."
