Generates Rs. 25 lakh at tea-fuelled fund raiser
The Aam Aadmi Party’s maiden, tea-fuelled fund raiser at a posh, ‘members-only’ club here generated Rs. 25 lakh, prompting party leaders to claim it reflects ‘popular support national convener Arvind Kejriwal enjoys among the middle class’.
Mr. Kejriwal was among several party members, including Somnath Bharti, former MLA from Malviya Nagar, where the Safdurjung Club - venue for the event dubbed ‘Chai Pe Charcha’ (discussion over tea) - is located.
The minimum donation amount was kept at Rs. 20,000 with no upper limit and, according to insiders’ claims, the event had local businessmen, professionals, and other residents defined by a party leader as ‘the intelligentsia’ registering as donors several days in advance. An estimated 200 are estimated to have been in attendance.
Though a party member said it was difficult to ascertain the single-largest donation received, the interactive event that commenced at 3 p.m. and came to a close three hours later, was found to have added Rs. 25 lakh to the AAP’s kitty from over 150 contributors.
“We believe there are two ways of generating funds for, and winning elections. One is by ensuring that every penny comes from a known source on the basis of popular support like in our case, and the other is through creation of a manufactured wave based on buying every available advertising space and radio slot through money gotten from crony capitalists like other parties,” Mr. Bharti told The Hindu .
“Those who participated said they understood that the 49-day AAP government could not survive in Delhi because it did not have the numbers,” Mr. Bharti added.
Meanwhile, even as Mr. Kejriwal participated in the said event, a war of words broke out between AAP, Bharatiya Janata Party , and Delhi Congress supporters over the source of funds in poll-bound Delhi on Twitter.
“Why BJP does not want to reveal the source of its 80% fund? If it is not black money then what is there to hide? #CleanFundedAAP (sic.),” tweeted AAP’s Ashutosh in reply to tweets questioning the AAP’s reliance on ‘foreign funds’. This was followed by an avalanche of tweets attacking the BJP and the Congress, and alleging that both parties were absorbing ‘black money’ to fund their respective campaigns.
A party insider said, “They were poking fun at us for no reason and questioning our ethics when even the Delhi High Court has absolved the party of any blame on the issue of foreign funds; we had to retaliate.”
To unveil ‘progressive’ agenda for villages at grameen samvad today
The fourth phase of the Aam Aadmi Party’s Delhi Dialogue would focus on developmental issues in the Capital’s urban and semi-urban villages, the party said in a statement on Saturday.
Dubbed grameen samvad or village dialogue given its theme, the interactive session has been divided into two parts, the first of which will be held at the Community Centre in West-Delhi’s Ghumanhera village near Chhawla on Sunday afternoon, and will feature the party’s national convenor Arvind Kejriwal and leaders such as Yogendra Yadav and Adarsh Shastri as speakers.
“The village dialogue will focus on the interests and welfare of the residents of 362 villages in the Capital; 135 of which are urban villages and the rest rural. The common thread that connects them is that these have been neglected over the last 66 years,” said a party leader.
The party’s Grameen Morcha and party candidates in different constituencies have been conducting multiple meetings with villages and panchayats, and combining different inputs and problems towards a consolidated vision of development for Delhi’s villages which will be announced by Mr. Kejriwal on Sunday.
The session will be followed by public meetings to be addressed by Mr. Kejriwal in the Bawana and Narela constituencies while the final instalment of the dialogue will be on January 4 at South-Delhi’s Chattarpur.
According to the party, farmers did neither get ‘adequate compensation’ during land acquisition nor ‘respectable prices’ for their crops, which was symptomatic of a ‘poorly-planned rural economy and infrastructure’.
Both the education and the health infrastructure of rural and semi-urban villages in the Capital were absent for practical purposes and the rural population needed to be given attention and made self-sufficient by taking concrete steps to improve the rural economy, the party said.
“The Delhi Dialogue team has been holding widespread consultations across villages and has also been engaging with the country’s leading bureaucrats, agriculturists, legal minds and land reform experts to create a feasible and sustainable plan for the villages ,” a party spokesperson said.
“We promise to rescind Section 33 and Section 81 of the Delhi Land Reform Act, 1954, to empower Delhi’s farmers and rural citizens through affirmative and progressive land policies,” the leader added.
