Stung by allegations of “dubious funding” of ₹2 crore, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday challenged the BJP’s senior Central ministers to order a probe into the funding and arrest him if found taking hawala money.
In a letter to the Chief Justice of India (CJI), Kejriwal also sought a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe at the earliest into the political funding of the three key parties related to the Delhi elections — AAP, BJP and Congress.
Defending the AAP’s ‘transparent’ funding in his letter to the CJI, Kejriwal said an SIT should probe the funding of all the three parties “at the earliest”.
And, “if the funding of any of these parties is found to be dubious, that party should be de-recognised and its office-bearers suitably punished”.
He further expressed hope that both the BJP and the Congress will cooperate in this for the cause of “transparency and clean politics.”
In separate letters addressed to the presidents of the BJP and the Congress, Amit Shah and Sonia Gandhi, respectively, Kejriwal drew their attention to reports that both the parties were getting funds from “unknown sources”.
According to an analysis by the Association of Democratic Reforms, 75 per cent of funding of key national parties comes from “unknown sources”.
No mention of AVAM
Interestingly, Kejriwal’s letter to Shah did not mention its splinter group AAP Volunteers Action Manch (AVAM) and instead blamed the BJP for making allegations of “dubious funding”.
“A few months ago too, when such allegations had been made against us, the BJP government at the Centre had, through an affidavit submitted to the Delhi High Court, informed that none of our (AAP) funding was illegal.
“Since these allegations have cropped up again, we are requesting the Supreme Court to set up an SIT to probe the funding of all the three parties related to the Delhi polls,” Kejriwal’s letter said.
Referring to various opinion polls giving the AAP an edge, Kejriwal accused the BJP of “diverting attention from imminent defeat” and using “set-up fronts” to run “false and defamatory” campaigns.
On Monday, the BJP and AVAM had termed AAP’s funding as ‘Hawala at Midnight”, with reference to four cheques of ₹50 lakh each shown on its website on April 5, 2014, which they claimed were from ‘bogus’ companies.
In defence of it not doing any due diligence, the AAP said that since yesterday, many donations with “deliberate fake names” have come up on its website.
‘Fake donors’
“Mischief makers” have used the names of Narendra Modi, Barack Obama, Gandhiji and other celebrities, it said.
The party claimed it does not validate user names. However, since all transactions can be done either by debit/credit cards or net banking, “our back-end has the full details of DB/CC card used; bank account used for making the donations, which is reconciled from time to time and real names are submitted to the Election Commission and other authorities.”
It, however, said it will make available the real names of all “fake donors” after consultations with its payment gateway providers within 24 hours
