‘Five lines of Python code, less than 15 secs to match donors’: Congress slams PM Modi, SBI for electoral bonds

Electoral bond scheme: Congress said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi lied to the nation and the State Bank of India (SBI) lied to the Supreme Court about the electoral bonds scheme. Congress MP Jairam Ramesh said that PM Modi lied to the nation and that the scheme was supposed to be fully anonymous. He then said that the SBI asked for three months while it only took then 15 seconds and five lines of Python code to match the donor with the political parties.

“Every single day the Prime Minister scales new heights of hypocrisy and plumbs new depths of dishonesty. The Prime Minister has fully lied to the nation in his latest interview to a Tamil television channel. He claims that “where funds have come from, how they are being used” is only known due to the Electoral Bond Scheme instituted by him,” he said, further listing down the ‘relevant facts’ about the scheme. 

He claimed that PM Modi wanted to hide the source of the funds and how they are being used. Not a single detail of which party got funds from which donor between 2018 to 2024 was revealed to the public, he said. 

Ramesh said that when the Supreme Court rejected the scheme the Modi government tried to defend the anonymity of the scheme. When the apex court asked SBI to publish the details of the donors, the lender lied to the court. “The remote-controlled SBI lied to the court, saying it did not collect this information. Then, it requested three months’ time to collate the data, conveniently seeking an extension until after the election,” he said. 

“The SBI was lying in the Supreme Court when it demanded a 3-month extension to match donor data with the political parties. It took our team five lines of Python code and less than fifteen seconds to match each donor with the political party they donated to,” said Ramesh. 

He also said that the Electoral Bond Scheme data revealed BJP and the government’s monumental corruption. Saying that the government engages in ‘Chanda Do, Dhanda Lo’, Ramesh said that Rs 4 lakh crore of contracts, projects and environmental clearances can be linked to thousands of crores in electoral bond donations.  

“At least 40 ED/IT/CBI raids on firms have been followed by hefty electoral bond donations by these firms to the BJP. The Prime Minister and his cronies have been engaged in a systematic Hafta Vasuli,” said the Congress leader. 

Jairam Ramesh said that the corruption of the Modi government has been known for a while but the setback is that there are now numbers to prove it. “Unfortunately, we can expect the Prime Minister to continue his full-time job of lying to the Indian people to cover it up,” said the Congress leader.

On Sunday, PM Modi in an interview to Thanthi TV said,  "Tell me what have we done that I should see it (electoral bonds) as a setback? I firmly believe that those dancing over it (bond details) and taking pride in it are going to repent. No system is perfect. There can be shortcomings which could be improved upon.” He said that a trail is available now because of the presence of the electoral bonds, and asked if any agency can tell about the sources of funding and their beneficiaries for the polls before 2014.