The Aam Aadmi Party has got over Rs.50 lakh as donation in less than 48 hours after party convenor Arvind Kejriwal appealed to the public for funds.
The party, since last Wednesday night, has been getting almost Rs.1 lakh per hour, which is the highest amount of donation received since the announcement that it will sustain itself on public funds.
While addressing a gathering of party supporters at Jantar Mantar here last Wednesday, Mr. Kejriwal said: “When we got the requisite funds from people ahead of the Assembly elections, we had asked them not to donate more. Now we have to prepare for fresh Delhi Assembly as well as the general election in 2014.”
“We need money. I urge people to donate as wholeheartedly as they did earlier. This is not our fight but your fight and we can not continue this without your support. Earlier when we put the donors’ names on the AAP website they objected to it saying that they might have to face witch-hunt by the rival parties.”
‘People want to donate’He had claimed that after the party’s performance in the Delhi elections the same people were calling the party saying they wanted to donate as they were now not scared.
Ahead of the Delhi Assembly elections, the AAP had asked people to stop giving donations to the party after its target of Rs.20 crore was met. Of the amount that the AAP received from 71,616 people, it spent Rs.18.25 crore on the Delhi elections. It has a corpus of Rs.1.75 crore.
Party leader Dilip Pandey, who looks after the donations to the party, said people across the world donated Rs.5,044,665 to the party by 9 p.m. on Friday. Of this, Rs.3,335,473 has been contributed by people in India, followed by the party’s supporters in the US, Singapore and the UK respectively as Rs.877,455, Rs.175,315 and Rs.166,827.
“People are donating to the party generously as Mr. Kejriwal had appealed them so. We are getting almost Rs.1 lakh per hour, which is the highest fund received by the party,” he said.
Published - December 14, 2013 11:03 am IST
