DAILY FROM: AHMEDABAD, CHANDIGARH, DELHI, JAIPUR, KOLKATA, LUCKNOW, MUMBAI, NAGPUR, PUNE, VADODARA JOURNALISM OF COURAGE FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2024, AHMEDABAD, LATE CITY, 26 PAGES Solar energy for every home Modi Sarkar Ki Guarantee Free electricity through solar rooftops to 1 crore households with project cost of ₹75 thousand crore Hamara Sankalp Viksit Bharat ELECTION COMMISSION PUTS OUT bond buyers, party redemptions PETITIONER LAWYER BHUSHAN says will ask SC to match lists MOST FIRMS IN AREAS THAT NEED Centre, State licences, approvals Who paid the parties INFRASTRUCTURE, CONSTRUCTION, MINING, PHARMA COMPANIES DOMINATE DONOR LIST First veil of secrecy is lifted; top 20 donors account for just under half of the total Rs 12,156 crore purchased through electoral bonds 2019-24 ANJISHNU DAS & DAMINI NATH NEW DELHI, MARCH 14 ATLEASToneveilof secrecyover political funding in India lifted days before the notification of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Pushed and prodded by the Supreme Court which struck down the electoral bonds scheme--introducedbythefirst Narendra Modi government in 2018--theElectionCommission of India released Thursday the list of those who purchased bonds. Among the biggest companies that donated money to political parties through the Electoral Bond scheme are Anil Agarwal-promotedVedantaLtd, Sunil Mittal-promoted Bharti Airtel, AV Birla Group-promoted Essel Mining Ltd, Bajaj Auto Ltd and DLF Ltd. The total amount donated under the scheme from April 1, 2019 to February 15, 2024, was Rs 12,156 crore, of which almost half came from the top 20 donors alone, the data provided by the State Bank of India to the ECI showed. What is missing, however, is theuniquebondnumberagainst each purchase and encashment, whichwouldhaverevealedwho donated how much to political parties. A large number of donors, anddefinitelymorethree-fourth of the top 20 donors, operate in sectors where resources are scarce,arecontrolledbythegovernment, or require licences and clearances from various governmentagencies.Thesebusinesses range from mining and metals, energyandtelecomtodrugsand pharmaceuticals, and real estate and construction. Cumulatively, the top 20 donors accounted for Rs 5,830 crore, which is almost 48 per cent of the total bonds purchased between April 2019 and February 2024. The Donor Number 1 is Future Gaming, a lottery company owned by Chennai-based Santiago Martin, which purchased bonds worth Rs 1,368 crore, followed by Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd, promoted by PP Reddy and PVKrishnaReddy,whichbought Rs 966-crore worth bonds. At Number 3 is Qwik Supply Chain Pvt Ltd, whose two directors are on the board of several Reliance Industries Ltd-promoted companies,withRs410croreinbond purchases. Three companies from West CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 `107 CR TWO MONTHS AFTER VICTORY TMC at No. 2 with Rs 1,609 crore, its bond redemption surged after Assembly win LALMANI VERMA & ANJISHNU DAS NEW DELHI, MARCH 14 REDEMPTIONOFelectoralbonds by the Mamata Banerjee-led All India Trinamool Congress (AITMC),thesecondlargestrecipientof suchdonationstopolitical parties between April 2019 and January2024,increasedafterthe party swept the West Bengal Assembly elections in 2021. According to data uploaded by the Election Commission, the AITMCredeemedelectoralbonds totalling Rs 1609 crore 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. 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 CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 THESTORYof SantiagoMartinof Future Gaming and Hotel Services is one that intertwines dreams with political scandals; of a labourer in Myanmar who metamorphosed into the ‘Lottery King’. Despite his humble beginnings, Martin’s reputation burgeoned as he navigated the murky waters of Indian politics while selling dreams and fortunes to ordinary people Santiago Martin through lotteries. According to data uploaded on the Election Commission website, Martin’s company purchased electoral bonds worth Rs 1,368 crore between April 2019 and January 2024. Whenitcomestobusinessin ONE NATION, ONE ELECTION REPORT Curtail terms of Assemblies, sync with Lok Sabha polls: Kovind panel 3 of top 5 donors bought bonds with ED and I-T knocking on their door 5daysafterEDattachedRs409-crassets,FutureGamingboughtbondsworthRs100cr DEEPTIMAN TIWARY & MAHENDER SINGH MANRAL NEW DELHI, MARCH 14 THREE OF the top five poll bond donors to political parties between 2019 and 2024 are companieswhichhaveboughtbonds even as they face Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax probes. These include lottery company Future Gaming, infrastruc- ture firm Megha Engineering and mining giant Vedanta. The No. 1 purchaser of electoral bonds in the data released by the Election Commission Thursday is Future Gaming and Hotels Pvt Ltd run by Santiago Martin.Thelotterycompanyhas purchasedbondsworthRs1,300 crore between 2019 and 2024. Notably, ED began a money laundering probe against Future Gaming in early 2019. By July that year, it had attached assets worth over Rs 250 crore belong- ing to the company. On April 2, 2022, the ED attached movable assets worth Rs 409.92 crore in the case. On April 7, five days after the attachment of these assets, Future Gaming bought Rs 100 crore in electoral bonds. TheEDinitiatedinvestigation under the provisions of PMLA against Santiago Martin and his company M/s Future Gaming Solutions (P) Ltd (Presently M/s Future Gaming and Hotel Services (P) Ltd and formerly The top 20 electoral bond purchasers From lottery to mining, from thermal power to mobile network — the top donors, according to data uploaded by the Election Commission Future Gaming and Hotel Services Pvt Ltd `1,368 cr Whatitdoes: Lotterybusiness, HQinCoimbatore, establishedin1991 Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd `966 cr Damsandpower projects.Basedin Telangana, est1989 Qwik Supply Chain Pvt Ltd Haldia Energy Ltd `377 cr `410 cr Thermalpower plantlocatedin WestBengal’s Haldia,est2015 Logisticsand supplychain. Establishedin 2000 Martin Lottery Agencies Ltd) on the basis of a chargesheet filed by Central Bureau of investigation (CBI). According to ED, Martin and others entered into a criminal conspiracy to violate the provisions of Lottery Regulation Act, 1998 and to obtain wrongful gain by cheating Sikkim Government. “Martin and his associates made illegal gain to the extent of Rs 910.3 crores on account of inflating the prize winning tickets CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 JINDAL, RUNGTA Mining, steel majors spent `825 crore, among them firms awaiting green nod NIKHIL GHANEKAR & JAY MAZOOMDAAR NEW DELHI, MARCH 14 Vedanta Ltd Essel Mining and Industries Ltd Mining,largest producerof aluminiumin India,est1965 Ironoremining, locatedin Mumbai, est1950 `376 cr Keventer Food Park Infra Ltd `195 cr DairyandFMCG, basedinKolkata, WestBengal Bharti Airtel Ltd Western UP Power Transmission Co `225 cr `198 cr `220 cr Production, distributionof power.Est2009 Mobilenetwork operator headquarteredin NewDelhi, est1995 Party-wise amount received (in `cr) MKJ Enterprises Ltd 6,060.51 BJP `192 cr Tradingin stainlesssteel business.HQin Kolkata,est1982 TMC 1,609.53 INC 1,421.87 BRS 1,214.71 BJD 775.50 Madanlal Ltd `186 cr; Yashoda Super Speciality Hospital `162 cr; Utkal Alumina International Ltd `145 cr; DLF Commercial Developers Ltd `130 cr; Jindal Steel and Power Ltd `123 cr; BG Shirke Construction Technology Pvt Ltd `119 cr; Dhariwal Infrastructure Ltd `115 cr; Avees Trading Finance Pvt Ltd `113 cr; Torrent Power Ltd `107 cr; Birla Carbon India Pvt Ltd `105 cr Reporting by Anjishnu Das, Adya Goyal, Sukhmani Malik, Shijith P Kunhitty Bond Buyer No. 1: Santiago Martin, labourer turned ‘Lottery King’ CHENNAI, MARCH 14 Scan for more information FUTURE GAMING, MEGHA ENGINEERING, VEDANTA South India, few names have sparked as much controversy and intrigue as Martin, now 59. On his return from Myanmar, he startedalotterybusinessin1988 whenhefoundedMartinLottery Agencies Ltd in Coimbatore. What made his name, 'Lottery Martin’, and his business a household name was the twodigit lottery craze that swept the region during the period. Based in Coimbatore, he expanded his operations to KarnatakaandKerala,eventually CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 THE GIANTS of India’s mining and steel conglomerates – Vedanta Limited, Rungta Sons Private Limited, Jindal Steel and Power (JSPL), Essel Mining and Industries Limited (EMIL) and Dempo — put together bought Rs 825 crore worth of electoral bonds, according to data made public by the Election Commission of India. Of these companies, Rungta SonsPrivateLimitedspentRs100 crore, Vedanta Ltd Rs 376 crore, EMIL Rs 224.5 crore, JSPL Rs 123 crore and Dempo Rs 1.5 crore. Of the Rs 376 crore that Vedanta Ltd donated, a tranche of bonds worth Rs 98 crore was boughtintheJanuary2022window. This was just before the elections in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Goa. The group’s Sesa Goa company is one of the biggest iron ore mining companies in the country and it also has CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 FACING GST HEAT REACHED ACROSS POLITICAL DIVIDE ARUN JANARDHANAN cbc 22201/13/0357/2324 PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana INSIDE MEGHA ENGG SPENT `140 CR MONTH BEFORE WINNING TENDER FOR TUNNEL IN TRANSPORT SECTOR, INDIGO, ASSOCIATES TOP DONORS PHARMA, HEALTHCARE COMPANIES ALSO IN LIST PAGE 16 A telling pattern: In pharma, different firms buy bonds on same days SOUMYARENDRA BARIK & AANCHAL MAGAZINE NEW DELHI, MARCH 14 FROM PHARMACEUTICAL companiesbuyingelectoralbondsen masse in 2022 to construction companieslininguptopurchase themin2019and2023,theelectoral bonds data released by the ElectionCommissionof Indiareveals a telling pattern: companies in specific sectors bought bonds in apparent tandem over a span of just a few days. In some cases, this coincides with regulatory or investigative action some of them faced. An illustrative example: On oneparticularday,November10, 2022, major pharma companies including Cipla, Dr Reddy’s, and Ipca Laboratories purchased bonds totalling close to Rs 50 crore. A day later, Glenmark and Mankind also purchased bonds CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Former President Ram Nath Kovind presents the report to President Droupadi Murmu. Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal (2nd from left) is also seen. The panel included (from left) ex-CVC Sanjay Kothari, former Leader of Opposition in RS Ghulam Nabi Azad, Home Minister Amit Shah, Finance Commission ex-chairperson N K Singh, Lok Sabha ex-Secretary-General Subhash C Kashyap. PTI Simultaneous polls can be held as early as 2029 if next govt accepts report DAMINI NATH & RITIKA CHOPRA WHAT NEXT? NEW DELHI, MARCH 14 GOVT WILL bring in constitutional amendments. TO SET in motion the process of simultaneouselections,thehighlevel committee on one nation, one election chaired by former President Ram Nath Kovind has recommended that the term of StateAssemblieselectedafterthe firstsittingofanewly-electedLok Sabha be curtailed till the elections to the next Lok Sabha. In case the government falls in the Centre or any state, the committee has recommended that elections should be held only for the remainder of the THE PRESIDENT, on the date CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 of the first sitting of new LS, will issue notification. E TENURE OF state assemblies EXPLAINED Government of India `5.00 WWW.INDIANEXPRESS.COM SINCE 1932 ● will last only till the end of the ongoing LS term. AFTER THAT, Lok Sabha and state assembly elections will be held simultaneously. Local polls will be held within 100 days of these elections. Opp opposed, raised concerns on federalism, Constitutional changes LALMANI VERMA & ANJISHNU DAS NEW DELHI, MARCH 14 OUT OF the 47 political parties which gave their opinion to the Ram Nath Kovind-led panel on simultaneous elections, 32 supported the idea, whereas 15 opposed it. Of the 32 in support, all the parties, importantly, are either BJP allies, or friendly towards the party. Of the15against,fiveareparties outside the NDA umbrella which are in power in states, including the Congress. In all, while 26 parties which arepartof theNDAareinsupport CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 BUSINESS AS USUAL BY UNNY MORE REPORTS PAGES 18, 23 Ex-bureaucrats Sukhbir Sandhu, Gyanesh Kumar new ECs; Adhir dissents MANOJ C G NEW DELHI, MARCH 14 RETIRED IAS officers Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu were appointed new Election Commissioners Thursday,hoursaftertheirselectionbyathree-membercommitteeheadedbythePrimeMinister. Sandhu, former Chief Secretary of Uttarakhand, was named Secretary, Lokpal in February this year on contract Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Gyanesh Kumar basis. Kumar retired in January as Secretary, Ministry of Cooperation. He was in the Ministry of Home Affairs at the CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Ahmedabad