Paucity of funds has forced the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to postpone its campaign for the coming lok Sabha elections in Delhi. Party sources said the AAP is faced with severe financial crunch. Hence, the party is unable to launch its poll blitzkrieg as compared to the BJP and the Congress party. So far, the party has received around Rs 10.5 crore from their donors across the world and that will not suffice.
The AAP sources said the top leadership of the party has been holding a series of meetings with several businessmen and corporate houses to persuade them to donate money to the party. “In the last meeting of the National Executive, it has been discussed that many bigwigs of corporate sectors were not supporting them after the Anti-Corruption Branch of Delhi Government had lodged the FIR against Reliance Industries chief Mukesh Ambani,” a senior party leader said.
Party sources further stated that due to insufficient funds, this time the party may not be able to afford paid volunteers for the campaigning who played a significant role during Assembly elections in the Capital. last time during the Delhi Assembly elections, the AAP had launched their door-to-door campaigning two months before the elections even though no plans have been chalked out as yet for the upcoming elections.
Interestingly, during the Delhi Assembly elections, the AAP had a budget of around Rs 18 crore for the election campaigning in the 70 constituencies. As per their calculation, they spent Rs 14 lakh per candidate and Rs 9.8 crore towards 70 candidates. Another Rs 10 crore was spent for establishing the party through posters, banners and campaigns. But this time, they have decided to fight in more than 300 seats in the coming lok Sabha elections.
To manage funds, the AAP online donation campaign was launched in January 2013 and the party had sent millions of e-mails requesting people to donate. By May 2013, the party claimed it was receiving Rs 3 lakh-Rs 4 lakh per day which had risen to Rs 10 lakh to Rs 12 lakh every day by October. Through a special drive, on October 19, the party claimed to have raised Rs 27 lakh on a single day.