The Aam Aadmi Party said names such as Barack Obama and Narendra Modi featuring on its website as donors were the result of a conspiracy by opponents to defame the party.
According to the party, it found many donations with deliberately fake names on its website since February 2 when its splinter group revealed that the AAP received Rs.2 crore last year through four “dubious” donor companies.
“Names of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, U.S. President Barack Obama, Mahatma Gandhi and other famous people try to create some doubts about our funding and the minds of people,” said a party spokesperson.
He added that the names appearing on the website are the ones written by donors in the application forms they fill. “Users can provide any names that they desire but the supporting details such as PAN number and bank records could lead us to the actual donors,” added the spokesperson.
He further said that actual names were submitted to the Election Commission and other authorities from time to time.
The party admitted that the latest controversy was a lesson for them to be more careful about the antecedents of the donors while receiving money in the future. A leader said that the AAP has started working on some corrective measures such as working with payment gateway providers to make available the real names of the transaction makers.
