By Venkatesh Nayak* Time and again, the Government of India has publicly said that donations to political parties made through Electoral Bonds (EBs) will increase transparency of political party funding. The Hon’ble Union Finance Minister said so in his February 2017 Budget speech while introducing the statutory mechanism for EBs (see paras # 164-165 of his speech). In January this year, he repeated this assertion in the Lok Sabha. A week later, on a Facebook post, he gave his take on how EBs would make political funding more transparent than the practice that prevailed hitherto. So far so good. The State Bank of India (SBI) — the only Bank authorised by the Government to sell EBs publicly — has refused to divulge the identity and other details of buyers under The Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act). So much for the guarantee of transparency of political party funding through EBs. The RTI Intervention The Union Finance Ministry notified the Electoral Bonds Scheme on 02 January, 20