New Delhi, Mar 18:
India’s “lottery king”, accused by the authorities of fraud and money laundering, has emerged with his company as the nation’s top political donor under an opaque funding system that has just been partially opened to scrutiny.
Santiago Martin’s Future Gaming and Hotel Services spent 13.68 billion Indian rupees ($165 million) between 2019 and 2024 – 40% more than the next-highest donor – under the now-scrapped funding system, which allowed anonymous and unlimited donations to political parties, data showed on Thursday. The information, published by the election commission on the orders of India’s Supreme Court.
In Tamil nad8 at least 77.5 per cent of the Rs 656.5 crore that the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) received in electoral bonds between the financial years 2019-2020 and 2023-2024 was donated by Santiago Martin’s Future Gaming and Hotel Services, according to data released by the Election Commission of India (ECI) Sunday. The company donated Rs 509 crore to the DMK in this period.
The data uploaded by the EC Sunday included details furnished by political parties on electoral bonds that had been submitted in a sealed cover to the Supreme Court. Only a few parties such as the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the DMK have revealed the names of their donors in these disclosures.
The data show that a big chunk of what the DMK received in donations came in the financial year 2021-2022, starting in April when the Tamil Nadu assembly polls were held. The party would ride to power in the state after the votes were counted the following month. In that financial year, Future Games donated Rs 249 crore worth of bonds and Megha Infrastructure donated Rs 40 crore worth of bonds, among other parties.
