Reliance-linked firm gave Rs 375 crore to the BJP through electoral bonds

A little-known firm linked to the Reliance Group, Qwik Supply Chain Private Limited, donated at least Rs 375 crore to the Bharatiya Janata Party through electoral bonds, fresh data released by the Election Commission on March 21 has revealed. Another Rs 35 crore worth of bonds purchased by the company were split between the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party.

On January 5, 2022, Qwik Supply bought bonds worth Rs 225 crore. Of this, the BJP encashed Rs 200 crore on January 10, 2022. The remaining Rs 25 crore were redeemed by the Shiv Sena on January 6, 2022.

On January 10, 2022, Qwik Supply bought bonds worth Rs 10 crore. These were encashed by the Nationalist Congress Party on January 11, 2022.

Eleven months later, on November 1, 2022, Qwik Supply bought 125 bonds of Rs 1 crore. The BJP encashed all of them on November 14, 2022.

One year later, on November 17, 2023 Qwik Supply bought another set of bonds worth Rs 50 crore. They were redeemed by the BJP on November 20, 2023.

Over 50% of the stake in Qwik Supply is held by three Reliance Group companies, Reuters reported.As we reported previously, one of Qwik’s three directors, Tapas Mitra, is also the director of Reliance Oil and Petroleum, Reliance Eros Productions, Reliance Photo Films, Reliance Fire Brigades, and Reliance Polyester. According to his Linkedin profile, he is the head of accounts (consolidation) at Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited.

A spokesperson of Reliance told PTI, “Qwik Supply Chain Pvt Ltd is not a subsidiary of any Reliance entity.”

This report is part of a collaborative project involving three news organisations – Newslaundry, Scroll, The News Minute – and independent journalists.

Project Electoral Bond includes Aban Usmani, Anand Mangnale, Anisha Sheth, Anjana Meenakshi, Ayush Tiwari, Azeefa Fathima, Basant Kumar, Dhanya Rajendran, Divya Aslesha, Jayashree Arunachalam, Joyal, M Rajshekhar, Maria Teresa Raju, Nandini Chandrashekar, Neel Madhav, Nikita Saxena, Parth MN, Pooja Prasanna, Prajwal Bhat, Prateek Goyal, Pratyush Deep, Ragamalika Karthikeyan, Raman Kirpal, Ravi Nair, Sachi Hegde, Shabbir Ahmed, Shivnarayan Rajpurohit, Siddharth Mishra, Supriya Sharma, Tabassum Barnagarwala and Vaishnavi Rathore.