AAP seeks SC-monitored probe into political funding

New Delhi: Facing allegations of funding by dubious companies, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal Tuesday wrote to Chief Justice of India H.L. Dattu and urged him to set up a special investigation team to probe funding of his party, the BJP and the Congress for the Delhi elections.

In his letter to Justice Dattu, Kejriwal said the party whose funding is found to be "wrong" should be de-recognised and action taken against its office bearers.

The Aam Aadmi Party chief also wrote to Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah and Congress president Sonia Gandhi and expressed hope that they will give their consent for such a probe in the interest of transparency and cleansing of politics.

Kejriwal said in the letter that his party has raised questions about lack of transparency in political funding and its movement was for cleansing politics.

He said that five days before the Delhi elections, BJP levelled allegations that his party's political funding had come through wrong sources.

The former chief minister said it was a serious issue and the AAP's entire funding was transparent and accounts digitalised.

"Hence we make a humble request to constitute an SIT at the earliest to probe funding for the Delhi elections of the three main parties -- BJP, Congress and AAP," he said.

"We hope that the request will be accepted in the interest of democracy and you will get action initiated," Kejriwal said.

In separate letters to Shah and Gandhi, Kejriwal said that as per his party's information, a large portion of their funding had come from unknown sources.

He said that when questions were raised about his party's funding some months back, the central government had given an affidavit in the Delhi High Court that the AAP funding was not illegal.

He said that since allegations were being levelled again, they demanded an SIT probe into the funding of the three parties.

"I have full faith that you will join this big effort for cleansing politics and write without delay a letter of consent to the Supreme Court for such a probe," said the letter sent to Shah and Gandhi.

The AAP Volunteer Action March (AVAM) Monday brought to light a Rs.2 crore illegal funding scam and alleged that the AAP received four donations of Rs.50 lakh each from "dubious companies" in April 2014.

AAP leader Kumar Vishwas told the media here that political funding of his party, the Congress and the BJP of the last five years should be probed.

The AAP also issued a statement saying that the BJP, the central government and "mysteriously set up fronts by them are running a malicious, false and defamatory mud slinging campaign".

"The campaign has been launched to divert attention from the imminent defeat of the BJP. The BJP is also scared to debate the issues concerning the people of Delhi," the AAP said.

Terming the BJP's allegations concerning its political funding "false", the AAP said the BJP has deployed an army of senior union ministers to discredit it.

"A lot of canards have been spread about the AAP's funding and particularly regarding four cheques shown on the party website on April 5, 2014," the party said.

"The AAP challenges the BJP's senior central ministers to order a probe into its funding," it said.

The party said it found many donations with deliberately fake names on its website since Feb 2 and mischief-makers used the names of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US President Barack Obama, Mahatma Gandhi and other famous people to try to create some doubts about the AAP's funding.

It said the AAP website at present does not validate user names and the users can provide any names that they desire.

However, it said real names were submitted to the Election Commission and other authorities after reconciling them from time to time.

"We are working with our payment gateway providers to make available the real names of the transaction makers so that we can improve our donation front-end."

It also said fake/wrong names constitute a small number of donors and the party will make available the real names after consultation with its payment gateway providers within a day.