A whopping Rs 1,716 crores’ worth of electoral bonds were sold in just two months, January and March 2019, by the State Bank of India. It seems that now the maximum amount of political donation is being made through electoral bonds, which the Election Commission of India (EC) itself termed a ‘retrograde step’.

In an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court on 25 March, the EC has said that electoral bonds will have serious repercussions on transparency in political funding.

In an RTI reply to Vihar Durve, accessed by The Quint, the SBI has said that in just two months in 2019, electoral bonds worth Rs 1716,05,14,000 were sold in 14 cities.

Whereas, over Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 1056,73,42,000 crore) worth of bonds were sold in 2018 (March, April, May, July, October and November).