In only a fortnight since the Delhi Assembly was dissolved, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has had an influx of donations from all over the world. While the party is yet to begin their campaign for donations, the members of the party claim that in the past month and a half the party has managed to get around Rs 3 crore as donation. However, as per the data online, in the past fortnight, around Rs 31.2 lakh have been donated to the party with donations going up as high as Rs 8.9 lakh a day.
“So far only a voice advertisement of party convener Arvind Kejriwal has been coming on the radio asking for donations. However, even before we took out that ad, the donations had started pouring in. The moment people came to know that there will be fresh polls in Delhi, there was an influx of donations pouring in,” said a party member.
While in September and October, AAP managed to collect only a few lakh rupees ranging from Rs 7 lakh to 8 lakh, this month, in only 19 days, they have collected over Rs 37.8 lakh.
The party’s aim is to collect around Rs 20 crore for campaigning before the Delhi Assembly election, said a party worker. “We have already received around Rs 3 crore and the target is Rs 20 crore. However, we are yet to kick off our donation campaign and we are sure we will meet the target before time,” he said.
As per the online record, since April 1 till Wednesday evening, Rs 19.22 crore has been donated to the party from people all over the world. The party last year had to ask people to stop sending donations because they were pouring in. This year it was anticipated that the response would be lukewarm but with the current rise in donations, the situations seems otherwise.