Who donated electoral bonds worth ₹162 crore: The real Yashoda Hospital, please stand up

However, on 15 March, the Ghaziabad hospital, through its official X handle, said: “Similar names lead to misinformation, which is why we must clarify that Yashoda Super Speciality Hospital, Kaushambi, has never indulged in any kind of political donations to any party.”

On the contrary, despite several newspapers naming Hyderabad-based Yashoda Hospitals, Hyderabad, as the donor, the hospital management has not issued any official denial.

All that the hospital PRO circulated to the media via WhatsApp was an unsigned message: “Unfortunately, our hospital’s name was wrongly published in certain media. Request you to please check once again. There is another Yashoda Super Speciality at Ghaziabad (UP border) near Delhi. Often, many confuse it with ours.”

Established in the 1990s, the Yashoda group runs four hospitals at different locations in Hyderabad with an estimated capacity of 4,000 beds. The group was considered close to the BRS government of K Chandrashekar Rao, which was accused in the past of benefitting the hospital with undue favours during its 10-year rule that ended in December last year.

What is surprising, though, is why the Hyderabad group’s management keeps quiet without coming out with an official denial if it has nothing to do with the bonds.

Also read: Big donors and pattern of raids

It is the Hyderabad-based Yashoda

Highly placed sources confirmed to South First that the entity shown in the EC list is indeed the Hyderabad-based Yashoda Hospital, and the likely beneficiaries were the two parties ruling at the Centre and in the State – BJP and BRS.

Interestingly, Yashoda Hospitals figures in the list of entities that had donated money directly to the Bharatiya Janata Party between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022. The BJP officially submitted the list to the Election Commission in November 2022.

It may be noted that these donations were directly made to party funds. The Election Commission of India mandates that political parties submit details of such donations from time to time. These are not donations made via electoral bonds.

Yashoda Hospitals, with the address given as Raj Bhavan Road, Somajiguda, Hyderabad, figures against serial numbers 424 to 431 and again from 433 and 436 of donations to BJP between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022. Each of the ten transactions was valued ₹1 crore. Incidentally, the hospital was raided by the IT department in April 2020.

However, Yashoda Super Speciality Hospital in Uttar Pradesh also appears on the BJP’s list submitted to ECI as a donor.

In the donations list submitted to the Election Commission, which lists details of donors giving directly to party funds (not via electoral bonds) between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023, the BJP’s own admission shows that Yashoda Super Speciality Hospitals, based in Uttar Pradesh, donated ₹5 lakh to the BJP. This contradicts the hospital’s claim on X that it has never donated to any party.

According to the Election Commission’s list of electoral bond donors, of the total ₹162 crore,  ‘Yashoda Super Speciality Hospital’ purchased 10 bonds of ₹1 crore each on 4 October 2021 and eight more of the same value on 7 October. On 4 April 2022, the hospital again purchased bonds totalling ₹50 crore. Bonds worth ₹20 crore were purchased two days later, on 6 April. The last purchase was on 11 October 2023 for ₹6 crore.

Last year, current Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, who was then president of the Telangana Congress, charged the BRS government with giving away close to eight acres of land to the Yashoda group in Hyderabad at a price far less than the government fixed value. Revanth had alleged that this had caused the government to lose more than ₹500 crore.