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A ₹20,000 dinner ticket awaits those who want to dine with Aam Admi Party chief Aravind Kejriwal this weekend in Bangalore.
Brain child of former Infosys CFO V Balakrishnan, who has won a nomination to contest from AAP ticket from Bangalore North, the donations from this event will be used to raise funds for the party’s election campaign.
A spokesperson for AAP told Business Line that AAP was not involved with this particular fund raising activity but a group of people led by Balakrishnan are behind this event. He also said the ticket price for dinner has not been finalised yet.
The spokesperson said that the dinner event is open to anyone who wants to help AAP’s cause through monetary donations.
The dinner event will be held on Saturday evening though the venue has been kept a secret. It is perhaps for the first time that such an event is being held and is similar to such events organised in the US for politicians who are contesting elections.
Kejriwal is also expected to hold another event on Sunday as well though it will not be used for fund raising activity.
Meanwhile, the decision to nominate Balakrishnan for the Bangalore North constituency has come as a surprise. He was expected to be nominated for the Bangalore South constituency against his former Infosys colleague Nandan Nilekani but the party seems to have saved both of them from some embarrassment.
AAP has chosen a relatively unknown Neena P Nayak, a child rights’ activist, to take on Nilekani and the sitting MP HN Anantha Kumar of the BJP. Balakrishnan had earlier said that he would lend support to Nilekani during his election campaign. Whether he would actually do so now remains to be seen.
The AAP spokesperson said Balakrishnan had to be persuaded to contest the elections and once he agreed to do so, he was asked to appear for a formal interview where he had to spell out his agenda for the elections.
“We decided to nominate him because he is a good man and wants to usher in a corruption-free era in politics,” the spokesperson said.
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