The Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) new strategy to project its convener Arvind Kejriwal as Delhi’s Chief Minister candidate — Kejriwal Firse campaign — left the social media buzzing on Wednesday, but the fund-raising drive has failed to fill the party’s coffers. Donations to the fledgling party have reduced to a few thousand rupees per day.
While pushing for fresh election, the party had initiated a campaign for fund mobilisation as its treasury has almost dried up. But the drive doesn’t seem to have worked. There was a time, especially during the peak period of lok Sabha election campaign, when the party used to get several lakhs of rupees through online donation on a daily basis.
But its daily earnings on certain days in October have been in just a few thousands. In fact, on October 9, the party had not received any donation at all. On October 15, it received the highest amount of Rs52,511 through online donation. On Wednesday, a day ahead of Diwali, the party just got Rs21,999 by nine donors.
The party gets a major chunk of its money from its supporters in the national Capital. Although people from Maharasthra top the list with 29.5 per cent of the donations, Delhi stands second with 23.4 per cent funds going to the party. Till Wednesday, the party had received Rs3.21 crore from the Capital.
However, the party does not consider the substantial decrease in its online donation graph after the lok Sabha debacle. A member of the fund-raising team said that the party had not been asking for funds lately. “Now that elections in Delhi are almost certain, we will pitch it up. The fund-raising drive will go simultaneously with our Kejriwal Firse campaign. The lull in funds had happened because in the post-lok Sabha results period we did not ask the general public for donation,” said the leader.