On Friday (15th March), propaganda web portal The News Minute published a report titled “‘Close’ to Modi, exempt from taxes: Torrent Group bought electoral bonds worth Rs 185 Cr” to insinuate quid pro quo between BJP and electoral bonds donor Torrent Group.
Danya Rajendran – the editor of The News Minute – also shared a post on her X handle to establish a link between the two without concrete proof. However, it has emerged that the Torrent Group has donated money to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) too among others.
Sudhir Mehta’s Torrent Group bought electoral bonds worth Rs 185 cr. Notably, his company was exempt from paying property tax worth Rs 285 crore by then Maha CM Devendra Fadnavis in 2019. Mehta is also considered close to Modi
— Dhanya Rajendran (@dhanyarajendran) March 15, 2024
Story by @tweets_prateekg https://t.co/B4IkdHhYo6
How The News Minute peddled misleading claims?
In its report, The News Minute mentioned that in 2019, then Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis granted “a company” exemption from paying property taxes of Rs 285 crore. “After the Election Commission released SBI’s data on electoral bonds last night, we now know the same company bought electoral bonds worth Rs 185 crore from May 7, 2019, to January 10, 2024,” The News Minute claims.
The report goes on to claim that Torrent Pharma’s chairman emeritus Sudhir Mehta is close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, insinuating that this close association with the top BJP brass earned exemptions for the company in Maharashtra.
TNM went on to establish how Adani and Mehta had been PM Modi’s “old friends” and had stood down CII when it “came down heavily on Modi in 2003 when he was CM shortly after Gujara riots”.
What with its intent to pin a charge on PM Modi using the issue of electoral bonds, TNM conveniently left out a significant piece of information that Torrent Group had also donated Rs 1 crore to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
The Torrent Group donated Rs 1 Cr to AAP
TNM essentially implied that all the Rs 185 cr spent by the Torrent Group to purchase the electoral bonds were given to the BJP alone. However, there is no proof backing this claim.
On the other hand, it is well established that the group gave Rs 1 Cr to the Aam Aadmi Party by purchasing their electoral bonds before the 2019 general elections. AAP is among the ten political entities that disclosed their donors on Sunday, 17th March.
According to AAP’s submission to the ECI, the Bajaj Group stands out as the party’s primary donor of electoral bonds. This detail subsequently appeared on the ECI’s website and was presented before the Supreme Court.
Between 23rd April 2018, and 25th May 2019, the party received electoral bonds totalling Rs 5.75 crores from various contributors.
Following the data required by the Supreme Court and disseminated by the ECI, AAP garnered a cumulative sum of Rs 65.45 crores from 18th April 2019 to 26th July 2023, positioning it as the 11th highest recipient of electoral bonds among political entities.
On 10th April 2019, the Bajaj Group extended a donation of Rs 3 crores to AAP, distributed in three equal parts. It also reveals that AAP received Rs 1 Cr from the Torrent Group. It is also reportedly the 10th largest donor donating to political parties.
