The Aam Aadmi Party celebrated the Republic Day and has used the opportunity to appeal its supporters to donate Rs.2,601--marking the date of the Republic Day. Within 12 hours the party managed to get over 400 donations of Rs.2,601 or more, said the party website page on donations.
In a mass e-mail sent to over lakhs of people the party appealed: “Happy Republic day! 26th January is of great significance to all of us. It was this day in 1930 that our freedom fighters made the Declaration of Indian Independence. Your party is expanding throughout the nation with more than 50 lakh members joining in the last 2 weeks. There is a strong undercurrent for change and together we will achieve our mission.”
“As we go into national level to sweep the corrupt politics out, we need you to stand with us, as always, in this quest. Today, let us celebrate Swaraj and work towards our nation’s bright future: please make a donation of Rs.2,601 or more today,” said the e-mail messages.
This is not the first time the ruling party in the Capital has made smart moves to collect funds. The party had used New Year’s eve to step up fund collections and on the beginning of 2014 had appealed to the people to support it by donating Rs.2,014. By January 14 AAP’s strategy of asking people to donate Rs.2,014 had netted them a total of almost Rs.1.06 crore. That was almost a quarter of all the money collected from within India since the Delhi polls.
“Let’s kick off 2014 with at least 2,014 supporters donating Rs.2,014 and show our support to AAP’s Lok Sabha campaign. Please ask your friends to join and support the AAP. 2014 too will be an year of the aam aadmi,” said party’s e-mail messages sent on January 1.
These are just few of the several strategies the party adopted to mobilise funds after it planned to go national. The strategy to step up fund mobilisation comes ahead of its debut in general elections. The AAP has estimated an expenditure of Rs.1 crore per Lok Sabha seat which means the party will have the challenge of raising Rs.400 crore as it has decided to contest about 400 seats.
Total donation received by the party from the time it planned to go national in mid-December last year remains Rs.67.5 crore. The party received over Rs.17.5 lakh on Sunday alone.
