Congress's chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala cited a media report which claimed that the BJP took a large donation from a firm being probed by the Enforcement Directorate

From an unaccounted system of how much money came into a political party and where it was spent, these bonds have put a leash on income and expenditure on elections by a political party

The bank argued that such issuing electoral bonds would encourage money laundering and would undermine the faith in Indian currency

Political parties sold electoral bonds worth Rs 874.50 crore in 10 phases in New Delhi to raise funds, but the value of bonds redeemed in the national capital was more than five times at Rs 4,715.58 crore

The bank cited two exemption clauses under the RTI Act to deny information -- Section 8(1)(e) which pertains to information held in fiduciary capacity and Section 8(1)(J) which pertains to personal information of a person which has no link to any public activity.

The Supreme Court had on April 12 directed parties to furnish by May 30 all details of funds received through electoral bonds to the Election Commission in a sealed cover

Lok Sabha Results 2019: Narendra Modi to take oath as PM on 30th May at 7pm, at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Members of Union Council of Ministers to also take oath.

At the BJP's headquarters in New Delhi, the mood was upbeat, with party workers cheering as TV channels reported the growing lead

In its response to an RTI filed by Pune-based Vihar Durve, SBI disclosed that electoral bonds worth over Rs 2,256 crore were issued in the month of April, which was up by 65.21 per cent from March month issue, at Rs 1,365.69 crore

Ahead of the general elections, the government in February had announced that electoral bonds will be sold in three tranches from March 1-15, April 1-20 and May 6-15

The money puts the BJP in an extraordinarily powerful position, even over logistical issues like how to get its leaders to election rallies