Who funds Aam Aadmi Party?By Niticentral Staff on Oct 16, 2013 The Aam Aadmi Party, which aims to collect Rs 20 crore for the upcoming Assembly election, has contributors across the world, some even donating from unheard of places like the Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands coming under the Kingdom of Norway.As per a report published in Times of India, there has been a considerable increase in Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP’s foreign funding over the past nine months. The party’s foreign funding has reached 50 per cent in just nine months which was a mere 20 per cent in January.“Overall, contributions from India continue to be the largest and form about 70 per cent of our total funds. Online, however, foreign contributions have grown substantially. This has largely to do with dedicated volunteers who are working in various countries and generating funds for us. In September, Arvind Kejriwal held a video conference with around 50 to 60 people in Hong Kong — mostly alumni from IIT and B-schools. This month we have already managed to collect Rs 50 lakh through multiple donors from there and are expecting more donations through the remaining month,” a senior party functionary was quoted as saying.The AAP, which aims to collect Rs 20 crore for the upcoming election, has by the end of September has already received around Rs 12 crore. The party has collected over Rs 6.20 crore from donors in India while the rest has come from NRIs based in the US, Hong Kong, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, UAE and even Saudi Arabia.“We are receiving around Rs 10 lakh per day from all sources, and expect to hit the target Rs 20 crore soon as we still have time before the elections,” an AAP activist had said last month.The AAP, which has kept all its transactions and donations in public domain by posting details on its website, has got large donations from Hong Kong followed by the US-based NRIs.“Over 4000 donors have contributed a total of Rs 1,16,67,059, which is around 12 per cent of the party’s total contribution, followed by NRIs in Hong Kong. One Hong Kong-based NRI has donated Rs 50 lakh for the party and assured us that he would urge other NRIs to donate more to the party fund,” the activist said.Till last week, AAP had generated a list of around 56,000 donors of whom only 5,000 or so were foreign contributors.The party has also been receiving funds from NRIs based in Germany, Qatar, Kuwait, New Zealand, Singapore, Norway, the UK the Netherlands and Japan.Party sources claim that Indian donations range between Rs 2,000 to 10,000, so there is no doubt that the larger share of the funds generated by the party is coming from overseas.
Posted on: Wed, 15 Jan 2014 17:20:46 +0000
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