Mud flies on who is clean: Rebels allege AAP got ‘shady’ funds, AAP says BJP is in panic

Karan Singh and Gopal Goel of the breakaway AAP Volunteer Action Manch (AVAM) alleged that AAP received four donations of Rs 50 lakh each from “dubious companies”. They named four companies and said they were checking on 31 companies.

Rejecting the charge, the AAP challenged the Centre to order an investigation.

Kejriwal also attacked the BJP: “We’ve taken all donations by cheque… We have a BJP government (at the Centre). Let it investigate. Please punish me if anything wrong is found… They (BJP) have pressed the panic button and that is why you see all these big guns campaigning for the party.”

The BJP retaliated, accusing AAP of accepting illegal donations.

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Union Minister Piyush Goyal said: “It’s a matter of great concern that a party that has called itself anarchist, a party that had threatened to disrupt the solemn occasion of Republic Day parade…has circumvented the law of the land to receive foreign donations. It’s not in the interest of the nation to receive foreign donations… when you connect the dots… it’s a matter of serious concern. The AAP’s donations are illegal. Black money is being routed via shell companies to the party.”

Earlier, showcasing what they claimed were screenshots from the AAP website, AVAM leaders said, “All these four donations of Rs 50 lakh each were received on April 5, 2014. All four companies mentioned on the AAP website are bogus.”

The AAP called it a “conspiracy” to tarnish its image ahead of the February 7 vote and challenged the government to get the matter investigated by any of its agencies.

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“This is a conspiracy. We invite the government to order an investigation before the polls by any of its agencies,” senior AAP leader Yogendra Yadav told reporters.

AAP spokesperson Ashish Khetan said: “In the case of these four companies, the AAP took money from them through cheques. All banking transactions are legitimate. The AAP, in a careful manner, took the PAN (permanent account number).”

“As soon as the money is received, the details are made public, uploaded on the website. If we had anything to hide, why would we put it up on the website? The AAP collects all cheques given in a day and submits them in the bank account through a software which transfers the money at night,” he said.

According to AAP, any donation to the party exceeding Rs 10 lakh is brought to the notice of its Political Affairs Committee. Responding to a query on whether the PAC investigated donations made by these companies, Yadav said: “The transaction between those companies and us is 100 per cent legal.
We cannot say where those companies got the money from. We simply do not have the mechanism and ways… We thought the best way was to make these transactions transparent and this was done.”

“This happened on April 5, 2014 and the first round of Lok Sabha polls took place on April 10. Whatever probe is possible for a political party to conduct in the middle of polls, we conducted,” Yadav said.

“Last week, at a press conference and at Kejriwal’s public meetings, we had warned people that this kind of mud slinging will take place in the coming week. You will remember that even last time, five-six days before the assembly polls, such incidents took place,” Yadav said. “This is an eight-month-old case and it has been suddenly been brought up five days before elections. This has been done so that no gets to know the truth.”

Not to be left behind, the Congress too slammed the AAP. Party spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said: “\This AAP has, for the last one and half years, been talking that we are an entity against whom you cannot make such allegations. We are snow white and have descended from the heavens.”

Singhvi was quick to add that the Congress could not vouch for the allegations levelled at AAP and said the charges required immediate, urgent and in-depth investigation.