What are Electoral Bonds? Know all about it!!

Electoral bonds are a special way of giving money to political parties in India. They were introduced in 2017 to make the process of funding political parties a bit different. With these bonds, people and companies can give money to political parties without telling anyone who they are. The State Bank of India is the main bank that handles these bonds.

These bonds are like special notes that come in different amounts, ranging from ₹1,000 to ₹1,00,00,000. The unique thing is that they don't charge any interest. The idea behind them is to keep the donors' names a secret, making the process fair and unbiased.

However, this secrecy has caused some problems. People worry that it might lead to misuse of the system, like hiding illegal activities or moving money around secretly. Some changes were made to different laws to allow for these electoral bonds, but critics say these changes might not be in the best interest of everyone.

In a big decision in 2024, the Supreme Court said the way these bonds were being used was not right. They said it allowed for too much money to go to political parties without anyone knowing who gave it. The court stopped the process of issuing these bonds immediately and asked the bank to share important information with the Election Commission of India.

So, while electoral bonds were introduced to make political funding more open, they ended up causing a lot of controversy and were eventually stopped by the court because of concerns about fairness and transparency.