With just days to go before Delhi goes to polls, a group of volunteers has come out alleging a massive scam in the funding of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), a claim that was later rejected by Arvind Kejriwal-led party which said that all transactions were legitimate.
The allegations were made by the AAP Volunteer Action Manch (AVAM), a group of volunteers who had broken away from the AAP in August last year to voice opinion against several aspects of AAP, including lack of “Swaraj” within the organisation.
The AVAM claimed that four bogus companies have made donations amounting to Rs. 50 lakhs each to the AAP.
AVAM said that its volunteers had checked out each of the addresses of the donor companies as mentioned in the AAP website and found out that no such companies were running out of the locations.
AVAM added that one of the companies was registered at an address which was located in a shanty.
In total, the AVAM claimed to have unearthed 31 such bogus companies that have donated to AAP’s coffers, adding that it was a clear case of money laundering as most of these companies had received money in their account only days before it was transferred to the AAP account.
“We are not in the business of unsubstantiated allegations…If this is clean politics then what is dirty politics,” an AVAM official said, while chiding Arvind Kejirwal for calling himself ‘Mr Clean’.
Asked why the volunteer group is not looking at the funding of other parties, AVAM said, “All other parties also score on transparency but they don’t create a go about saying they are clean.”
Responding to the allegations, the Aam Aadmi Party said that they have nothing to hide and are open to scrutiny by any government agency.
Dismissing the allegation, aprty leader Yogendra Yadav said that more muck would be thrown at them in the run up to the polls. “The Centre is rattled,” he said.
“AAP is the only party in the country that maintains transparency on its funding. The UPA and the NDA government had probed our funding and found nothing wrong,” adding that the Congress and the BJP should reveal their source of funding.
