Foreign donors buoy up AAP’s Assembly election campaign

Analysis of donations received by the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has shown that the party has received much of its money from people living in the United States followed by Hong Kong, United Kingdom and Singapore. Nivedita Khandekar reports.

Analysis of donations received by the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has shown that the party has received much of its money from people living in the United States followed by Hong Kong, United Kingdom and Singapore.

Maharashtra emerged as the party’s No. 1 source of donations in the country, followed by Delhi, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh (see box).

Since the name of the party was registered and fund details put up in public domain on Saturday at 12noon, total donation received was `8.87 crore.

The party has claimed that it will fight elections with people’s money.

People have been donating amounts as small as `21 and `50 to bigger amounts such as `10,000 and `5 lakh. The party posts details of every donation on its website.

But why are people from elsewhere contributing to AAP for its Delhi campaign? Spokesperson Manish Sisodia said: “People are hopeful of clean politics and hence the response.... They need change.”

AAP had declared a target of `20 crore as collections. It hopes to collect the rest of the amount before the Assembly elections in November.