AAP is not answering even straight questions: Swaraj India

NEW DELHI: Following reports of I-T notices to Aam Aadmi Party over discrepancies in the donor list on its website and the one submitted to the EC, Swaraj India, the Yogendra Yadav-led party, slammed the Arvind Kejriwal-led party for not being transparent in matters for political funding. “We had raised five specific questions to the AAP on its shady funding practices and invited them for a public debate.

It is unfortunate that the party after coming to power doesn’t have the democratic spirit or courage to answer straight questions related to its own funding,” Swaraj India spokesperson Anupam said, adding that ‘shady political funding’ was the source of black money and corruption.

While Anna Hazare had recently shot off a letter to Arvind Kejriwal asking him to make public the donors list, Swaraj had challenged AAP for a debate on transparency in party funding.

According to a news report on a leading TV channel, in a submission to the Election Commission (EC) on October 15, AAP’s national treasurer Raghav Chaddha said there were “inadvertent errors” in the donation details submitted to it and sought to withdraw the I-T returns it had filed with the poll panel. The acknowledgement of “inadvertent errors” reportedly came a day after the I-T department sent a notice to AAP pointing out discrepancies in the list of donations submitted by it to the EC and the list available on its website, and asking why the party’s I-T exemption be not withdrawn.

An IT notice sent to the party on October 14, after three notices sent between June and September, said, “It was noticed that there were many donations over `20,000 as per your website which were not reported by your party to EC. A list of many such donations has been provided to you with the summons.”