Aditya Birla group donated Rs 100 crore to BJP two months before government’s Vodafone Idea bailout

It is India’s third-largest telecom operator behind Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel. But Vodafone Idea, or Vi, which is jointly owned by the British firm Vodafone Plc and the Indian conglomerate Aditya Birla group, has been in troubled waters for more than five years.

The main reason is debt. The telecom operator owes Rs 2.14 lakh crore to banks, financial institutions, and most of all to the Indian government.

In September 2021, the Narendra Modi government announced a relief package that allowed struggling players in the telecom sector to convert a part of their government debt into equity held by the government.

In January 2022, Vi opted for this conversion. However, as the year went by and its losses mounted, the telecom operator announced on December 6 that it had not heard from the government about the move.

Now, fresh electoral bond data released by the Election Commission shows that six days after the distress announcement, the Aditya Birla group firms donated Rs 100 crore to the Bharatiya Janata Party in electoral bonds.

In February 2023, within two months of the donation, the Modi government converted debt of Rs 16,000 crore into equity, making the Indian government the largest shareholder in Vi.

The electoral bonds were bought by three firms of the group:...

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