Three companies linked to the Adani Group bought electoral bonds amounting to a total of Rs 55.4 crore from April 2019 to November 2023. All three companies are subsidiaries of the Welspun Group.
The highest purchases – Rs 55 crore – were by the three subsidiaries of the Welspun Group, a Mumbai-based conglomerate founded by BK Goenka. Rs 42 crore of these bonds were encashed by the BJP, as per data uploaded by the Election Commission on Thursday.
The first subsidiary that purchased bonds is Welspun Enterprises Ltd, purchasing Rs 13 crore in two tranches – Rs 3 crore in April 2019 and Rs 10 crore in November 2022.
As to Welspun Group’s connection with Adani, in 2005, the Adani Group entered into a joint venture – Adani Welspun Exploration Ltd – with Welspun Natural Resources Pvt Ltd. According to a press release, the Adani Group has a 65% shareholding in Adani Welspun Exploration Ltd through Adani Enterprises Ltd, which has Gautam Adani as chairman and his son Rajesh Adani as managing director.
Meanwhile, the Welspun Group has a 35% shareholding in Adani Welspun Exploration Ltd through Welspun Natural Resources Pvt Ltd, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Welspun Enterprises Ltd.
The second subsidiary, Welspun Corp Ltd, bought electoral bonds worth Rs 27 crore. It bought Rs 5 crore in May 2019, Rs 2 crore in January 2020, Rs 7 crore in October 2020, Rs 3 crore in April 2022, and Rs 10 crore in November 2022.
The third subsidiary, Welspun Living Ltd, previously Welspun India Ltd, bought bonds worth Rs 10 crore in November 2022 and Rs 5 crore in November 2023 – a total of Rs 15 crore.
In all, the three subsidiaries of Welspun bought bonds worth Rs 55 crore.
Rs 30 crore was purchased during the November 2022 window coinciding with state elections in West Bengal, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. Rs 8 crore was purchased during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Rs 2 crore during the 2020 Delhi Assembly polls, and Rs 7 crore during the 2020 Bihar Assembly polls. Rs 5 crore was bought in a window coinciding with polls in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Mizoram in November 2023. Rs 3 crore was bought in April 2022, a non-election month.
All the electoral bonds bought by Welspun Enterprises Ltd and Welspun Corp Ltd – Rs 8 crore – coinciding with the 2019 Lok Sabha polls were encashed by the Congress. During the purchase window ahead of the Telangana polls in 2023, Welspun Living Ltd purchased bonds of Rs 5 crore that were encashed by the Bharat Rashtra Samithi.
All the rest of the bonds purchased between January 2020 and November 2022, amounting to Rs 42 crore, were encashed by the BJP.
Newslaundry sent a questionnaire to the Adani Group in connection with this data. An Adani spokesperson told Newslaundry, “We categorically deny your allegations. The Adani Group has never purchased electoral bonds, directly or indirectly, to donate to any political party.”
This report is part of a collaborative project involving three news organisations – Newslaundry, Scroll, The News Minute – and independent journalists.
Project Electoral Bond includes Aban Usmani, Anand Mangnale, Anisha Sheth, Anjana Meenakshi, Ayush Tiwari, Azeefa Fathima, Basant Kumar, Dhanya Rajendran, Divya Aslesha, Jayashree Arunachalam, Joyal, M Rajshekhar, Maria Teresa Raju, Nandini Chandrashekar, Neel Madhav, Nikita Saxena, Parth MN, Pooja Prasanna, Prajwal Bhat, Prateek Goyal, Pratyush Deep, Ragamalika Karthikeyan, Raman Kirpal, Ravi Nair, Sachi Hegde, Shabbir Ahmed, Shivnarayan Rajpurohit, Siddharth Mishra, Sumedha Mittal, Supriya Sharma, Tabassum Barnagarwala and Vaishnavi Rathore.