Over Rs 900 Crore Electoral Bonds Purchased By Pharmaceutical and Health Care Firms Including Those Under The Scanner

The Electoral Bond revelations have exposed at least 35 pharmaceutical companies and at least two healthcare companies have donated more than Rs 900 crores to political parties in the form of electoral bonds. While the data doesn’t reveal to which specific parties the donations went most of the companies made their maximum contribution between 2019-23, according to the data uploaded by Election Commission on March 14 in compliance with the Supreme Court order.

Torrent Pharmaceuticals

Torrent Pharmaceuticals, one of the leading pharmaceutical companies bought electoral bonds worth Rs 77.5 crore between May 2019 and January 2024. With a corporate office in Ahmedabad Gujarat, Torrent Pharmaceutical Limited chairman Sudhir Mehta also owns Torrent Power Limited. While Torrent Pharmaceutical gave Rs 77.5 crore, around the same time, sister company Torrent Power bought electoral bonds worth Rs Rs 106.5 crore. Just two companies together, Torrent Group donated Rs 184 crore to a political party or several parties. Interestingly the Torrent pharmaceuticals came under the scanner after their Deplatt-150 medicine was declared substandard by the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration in 2018. The following year, in 2019, the United States Food and Drug Administration pulled up the firm for not meeting quality checks at their production unit even after repeated warnings. The Gujarat Food and Drug Administration had issued notices to the firm after they found samples of their blood pressure drug Losar H of substandard quality. But the firm made political donations as electoral bonds in 2019 and onwards and interestingly no action was ever taken against the firm by the Indian authorities.

​Yashoda Super Speciality Hospital

​The 12th biggest donor amongst all spectrum and topping the list in health care companies is Yashoda Super Speciality Hospitals that, as per the Election Commission data had donated Rs 162 crore as electoral bonds. Between 4th and 6th of April 2022, they donated Rs 80 crore in two instalments. The hospital website https://www.yashodahospital.org/ shows Upasana Arora as the Managing Director and Dr P N Arora as the chairman of the hospital. Yashoda Super Speciality Hospitals is located at Kaushambi, Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh. PN Arora's group is currently developing Yashoda Medi-city, a state-of-the-art 1,200-bed hospital in Ghaziabad, with a planned investment of Rs 500 crore. While the hospital authorities have denied making any payment to SBI for electoral bond donations, their management hasn’t lodged any complaint as yet if their brand name has been wrongly used.

​Like Torrent, Hetero Too faltered

​Similarly, on 7th April 2022 Hetero Drugs Limited had bought Electoral bonds worth Rs 20 crore. On the same day, 7th April 2022, another franchise of the same Hetero group named Hetero Labs Limited donated Rs 20 crores as Electoral bonds to political party/parties. Little more than a year later, on 11th July 2023, Hetero Drugs Limited bought a fresh batch of Electoral Bonds for Rs 10 crores. Months later, on October 12, 2023, Hetero Biopharma and Hetero Labs Limited together purchased fresh Electoral Bonds worth Rs 10 crore. Cumulatively, Hetero Group has contributed Rs 60 crores as political donations to political party/parties between 2022-23. Hetero group boasts of manufacturing Covifor (Remdesivir) and Favivir (Favipiravir) as COVID-19 drugs after the pandemic broke out. Remdesivir had seen a massive demand during the second wave of the pandemic in 2021 among patients hospitalised with severe symptoms. While Hetero could expand their business, the same company received multiple notices from the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration for substandard drugs including the Remdesivir. Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration issued a notice to the company in December 2021 after a sample of Remdesivir was found ’spurious’.

​While Dr Reddy’s Laboratory purchased electoral bonds worth Rs 84 crore, Hydererabad-based Nacto Pharma gave Rs 69.25 crore as political donations in the form of 76 electoral bonds. Another Hyderabad-based Pharma company Aurobindo Pharma bought 70 electoral bonds worth Rs 51.1 crore between 2019 and 2023.

​They Faltered But They Bought Electoral Bonds

​Another Gujarat-based pharmaceutical firm, Zydus Healthcare has bought electoral bonds worth Rs 29 crore. But since 2016, Zydus Life Science (formerly Cadila) has received multiple warning letters from the US FDA for failing to maintain ‘the prescribed’ standards at their production units. But in March 2024, Zydus Life claimed they had received the nod from the US drug regulator for manufacturing and supplying the API (active pharmaceutical ingredient).

​Cipla too has been show-caused by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) for failing to meet the set standards. In 2021 Cipla’s antiviral drug Acivir-200 DT (aciclovir dispersible tablets I.P. 200 mg) was declared ‘Not of standard quality’. No action was taken against the company but the firm in November 2022 had bought electoral bonds worth Rs 25.2 crore. The firm has made political donations as electoral bonds worth Rs 39.2 crore between 2019 and 2022.

​Here’s the full list of all the pharmaceutical and healthcare companies that had bought Electoral Bonds, as per the data revealed by the Election Commission.