Electoral Bonds in India — Timeline of A Failed Reform
Electoral bonds were the central feature of India's political-funding regime from 2018 to 2024. They were pitched as a transparency reform. They were ruled unconstitutional by a unanimous five-judge Supreme Court bench in February 2024. The timeline is short, the lesson is long.
What the scheme actually did
An electoral bond was a bearer instrument purchased from the State Bank of India in denominations from ₹1,000 to ₹1 crore. The purchaser could donate the bond to a registered political party. The party encashed it. The identity of the donor was known to SBI (which means, in practice, to the government), but not to the public, not to opposition parties, and not to the ECI. The scheme replaced a previous regime that required disclosure above ₹20,000.
Why it was sold as reform
The official argument was that anonymous donations through formal banking channels would replace cash donations whose source could not be traced. In principle, this was a step up from suitcases of cash. In practice, it created a worse regime: anonymous to the public but visible to one party (the one in power), which created a structural asymmetry of information.
The numbers
Between March 2018 and the strike-down, electoral bonds totalling approximately ₹16,500 crore were issued. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party received approximately 50–55% of that total. The Indian National Congress received approximately 10%. Regional parties (TMC, BRS, BJD, DMK) received most of the remaining 35%.
The court's reasoning
The February 2024 judgment (Association for Democratic Reforms v Union of India) found three constitutional problems. First, anonymity to the public violated the right of voters under Article 19(1)(a) to information about who funds parties. Second, the removal of the prior ₹20,000 disclosure threshold for cash and the removal of the previous cap on corporate donations together enabled quid pro quo arrangements. Third, the asymmetric visibility (government knows, public doesn't) created an unconstitutional information disparity.
What was disclosed after the strike-down
The Court ordered the State Bank of India to disclose the donor-recipient mapping. The disclosure happened in stages between March and April 2024 and was published on the ECI website. The mapping confirmed multiple cases where companies under regulatory investigation became major donors shortly before or after favourable regulatory decisions.
What replaced it
Nothing yet. The pre-2018 regime is technically restored: disclosure required above ₹20,000, corporate donations capped, identity of donors disclosable. Whether and how the government legislates a replacement remains open.
What this tells you about reform
Two things. First, transparency reforms that are designed inside the office that benefits from opacity will reliably produce more opacity. Second, judicial review remains the only consistently effective check on funding regimes, which is itself a structural problem because litigation is slow and most reforms run their full course before a court can examine them.
Further reading
Electoral bond on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_bond. The full Supreme Court judgment is on the SC website. Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) has the cleanest party-wise data summaries.
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