33% of Aam Aadmi Party’s Delhi funds from Karnataka & Maharashtra

NEW DELHI: About a third of funds raised by Aam Aadmi Party for the upcoming Delhi assembly elections have come from Maharashtra and Karnataka, with donors and experts crediting the contributions to the desire to see an alternative form of government by the fledgling party that wielded power for just 49 days after the 2013 polls.

The two states have almost matched contributions from Delhi, which accounts for 37.7 per cent of the total funds raised by the Arvind Kejriwal-led party. According to AAP spokesperson Pankaj Gupta, the party has collected funds from nearly two lakh donors in India and Indians living in 63 other countries. About 30 per cent of the Rs 10.30 crore collected by AAP in the past two months has come from Indians in the US, Canada, UAE, UK and the others.

"We want to see if the experiment works," said Shweta Shetty, a Bengaluru-based business executive in Bengaluru, who has donated an unspecified sum for the polls and is also volunteering for the party.

Shetty said she was initially doubtful about the AAP, but added that she was convinced about the party’s sincerity after seeing its government in Delhi. "It is not that we do not have other parties to vote for, but the ideology professed by AAP, which is above caste and religious calculations, is closest to what I want to see in a ruling party. So I have donated to them and am also volunteering," she added.

Trilochan Shastry, professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru, said that people in cities other than Delhi were supporting AAP because they were seeking an alternative form of governance. "They may be hopeful that if it works in Delhi, it could spread to other parts of India also," he said.

AAP had collected funds from across the country in the run-up to the previous polls as well, before it went on to form a government with Congress’ outside support. At that time, though, the donations were seen as support for a national cause since AAP was also likely to field candidates for the ensuing Lok Sabha elections.

"The transparent funding model we are talking of have made people think that it is a good idea for the nation. Both the Congress and the BJP are status quoist parties. We represent alternative politics," contended Mayank Gandhi, the AAP candidate for Mumbai North-West in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

AAP has raised Rs 1,56,30,954 from Maharashtra, largely from Mumbai.