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Lok Sabha election 2024: World’s biggest poll kicks off as India begins voting - BBC News Lok Sabha election 2024: World’s biggest poll kicks off as India begins voting - BBC News
(32 minutes later)
Electoral bonds, launched by PM Modi’s government in 2018, were aimed at cleaning up the murky financing of The Election Commission says polling is progressing smoothly and peacefully at 102 polling stations across 21 states and federally-governed regions.
political parties. At 13:00 India time [07:30GMT], voter turnout ranged from 30% to 53% in different states, the commission said.
But in February, the scheme, which allowed people and companies to make anonymous donations to parties, was banned by the Supreme Court. The judges called the scheme unconstitutional, saying it lacked transparency. The north-eastern state of Tripura (53.04%) and the eastern state of West Bengal (50.96%) were among the states which registered the highest voter turnout.
The court also ordered the government-run The states of Meghalaya (48.91%), Assam (45.2%) and Manipur (45.68%) also saw high turnout.
State Bank of India (SBI) to provide details of who bought these bonds and which party The states of Bihar (32.4%) and Maharashtra (32.36%) had lower turnout in comparison.
received how much.
The BJP was the biggest
beneficiary of the scheme, securing almost half of the bonds worth 120bn
rupees donated between 2018 and 2024 - something that isn’t looking good on Mr Modi’s report
card.
Media
reports have linked many of the donations to companies that were being
investigated by government crime agencies, leading to accusations from the opposition that the government was using
investigating agencies for “extortion” – a charge several ministers have denied.
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