DMK got ₹509 cr from lottery baron, ₹105 cr from MEIL

COIMBATORE-based Future gaming and Hotel Services Limited, owned by Santiago Martin, the highest buyer of electoral bonds worth ₹1,368 crore, donated ₹509 crore to the DMK in Tamil nadu.

This constitutes 37.2% of the group’s bonds purchased from October 2020 to January 2024. The DMK and AIADMK have disclosed the identities of their donors from 2019 to november 2023.

Of the ₹656.50 crore worth bonds encashed by the DMK, ₹509 crore came from Future gaming. The DMK’s next biggest donor mentioned as ‘Megha Infrastructure’, likely to be Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited (MEIL), donated ₹105 crore. MEIL is also the second largest buyer of electoral bonds, having purchased bonds worth ₹966 crore

The AIADMK, in its submission to the ECI on november 10, 2023, said the party received ₹6.05 crore through bonds for the years 2019-20 to november 2023. Chennai Super Kings Limited donated ₹5 crore on April 3, 2019 while chairman of TVS Capital Funds, gopal Srinivasan, donated ₹5 lakh on April 4, 2019 and Lakshmi Machine Works Limited from Coimbatore donated ₹1 crore on April 2, 2019, it said.

According to its website, the Hyderabad-based MEIL built a 525 MW thermal plant at Thoothukudi for the group company and private thermal generator SEPC Power and integrated it with the grid. In Tn, it is executing the 500 MW capacity Kundah Hydroelectric Project in the nilgiris.

In 2019, Chief Minister and DMK chief MK Stalin, while in the opposition, filed a defamation suit against Vikatan publications for an article claiming the party received ₹500 crore from Martin for polls. While Martin is known as a lottery baron, lotteries were banned in Tn in 2003.