The city was responsible for 33% of all sales and 43% of July’s redemptions of Electoral bonds.
Hyderabad was the most popular location for purchasers and users of electoral bonds (EBs) in the most recent tranche of sales, according to a State Bank of India response to a Right to Information (RTI) request. The Telangana Assembly elections are scheduled for December. 33% of all sales and 43% of EB redemptions in July were made in the city.
From July 3 to July 12, EBs in the 27th tranche of the Electoral Bond Scheme were available for purchase. SBI responded to Commodore Lokesh Batra (retd), a proponent of openness, by stating that 1,371 EBs worth Rs 812.80 crore were sold in this tranche. The 29 SBI branches participating in the plan saw sales of Rs 266.27 crore in Hyderabad alone. Hyderabad was followed by Kolkata (Rs 143.20 crore), Mumbai (Rs 135 crore), New Delhi (Rs 112.54 crore), and Chennai (Rs 70.50 crore). Elections are anticipated to take place in Telangana, Mizoram, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan by the end of the year.
Political parties in Hyderabad redeemed EBs worth Rs 346.67 crore out of the 1,365 bonds worth Rs 812.75 crore that were cashed.
The remaining top five branches for cashing out EBs in this cycle included Bhubaneswar, New Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai.
Since the program’s launch, EBs totaling about Rs 13,791 crore have been sold. SBI data revealed that approximately 90% of all EBs sold up to that point were from five cities: Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, New Delhi, and Chennai in an RTI response to The Indian Express in May. Over 64% of all EBs redeemed since 2018 have come from the SBI branch in New Delhi.
The programme was introduced in January 2018 and features four 10-day sale periods per year — in January, April, July, and October — as well as an extra 30 days of discounts in years when the Lok Sabha is in session.
