The government allowed the issuance of the 19th tranche of electoral bonds, available for sale from January 1 to 10. Electoral bonds are launched as an option to cash donations made to political parties to bring transparency in political funding. But, political parties have been raising concerns about the opaqueness of the financing via such bonds.

“State Bank of India (SBI) in the XIX Phase of sale has been permitted to issue and cash Electoral Bonds via its authorised branches from January 1 to January 10, 2022,” the Finance Ministry said in a statement. The authorised SBI branches are in Lucknow, Shimla, Dehradun Kolkata, Guwahati, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Patna, New Delhi, Chandigarh, Srinagar, Gandhinagar, Bhopal, Raipur, and Mumbai. SBI is the only authorised bank to issue electoral bonds.

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According to the scheme, electoral bonds can be bought by a person who is a citizen of India or entities incorporated or established in India. Registered political parties that have not secured less than 1 per cent of the votes in the last election of Lok Sabha are eligible to get the electoral bonds.