With five days to go for the Delhi Assembly polls, the campaign reached a crescendo on Monday with the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP, which is locked in a close contest with the BJP, hit by a funding controversy.
Termed as ‘Hawala at Midnight’ by Shazia Ilmi, who quit the AAP in May 2014 and recently joined the BJP, the allegations of ‘dubious’ funding were made at a press conference by a breakaway group, called the AAP Volunteers Action Manch (AVAM).
The AVAM alleged that it had received four donations of ₹50 lakh each from “bogus companies”. “All these four donations…were received on April 5, 2014 at 12:00 am. All the four companies mentioned on the AAP website are bogus,” it said, accusing the AAP of “money laundering”.
Union Minister Piyush Goyal also tore at the AAP’s “claims about transparency”, saying the “AVAM group has shown how AAP used black money to fund themselves.”
Reacting to the allegations, the AAP blamed “mysterious fronts” floated by a “frustrated and desperate” BJP for making “malicious and false” allegations against it.
“We are ready for a probe by any agency of the Central government… AAP uploads its donation record through a software which uses a batch technique…All cheque donations post realisation in banks are uploaded on the website in a batch process during night hours, therefore, the malicious campaign about transactions at midnight is completely incorrect,” Kejriwal said.
In a separate development, the Delhi Bar Association alleged that BJP leader Kiran Bedi’s NGO, Vision Foundation, had “accepted huge funds from Harshad R Mehta” (Mehta, who died in 2002, was involved in a stock market scam in 1992).
Row over ‘gotra’ ad Earlier in the day, the AAP accused the BJP of aiming at Kejriwal’s gotra (community) in an ad that appeared in national dailies. “The people of Delhi do not like the politics of name-calling and will give a fitting reply to BJP on February 7 (translated),” tweeted Kejriwal.
The BJP shows Kejriwal threatening to disrupt the Republic Day parade with a jhadu in hand. The next frame shows him asking for a VIP pass for next year’s parade and uses the term Upadravi (anarachist) gotra .
While a war of words broke out on the social media between AAP and BJP supporters, both the parties took turns to complain to the Election Commission. The AAP said the ad had lampooned an entire community (Agarwal/Bania), while the BJP accused Kejriwal of giving a casteist colour to the use of a “metaphor”.