Election Commission issues notice to AAP, says explain ‘Hawala’ money

The Aam Aadmi Party is soup again. The Election Commission of India has issued a notice AAP asking them to explain discrepancies in donations filed by the party during the financial year 2014-15. In the notice, the Commission has sought a reply from the party within 20 days, failing which action would be taken.

According to the letter issued, AAP allegedly had taken donations from hawala operators to the tune of Rs 2 crore, which they have shown as “voluntary donations”. On the contrary, the political party has not shown the details of Rs 13.16 crore they received as donations. As per the rules, the Commission has the power to cancel the or suspend the recognition of a political party.

The letter states, as reported by NDTV, “The original report contains a list of 2,696 donors with the total donations amounting to Rs 37,45,44,618 and the revised contribution report shows the total amount as Rs  37,60,62,631 received from 8,264 donors.”

Arvind Kejriwal’s party got a clean chit in February 2015 from the Centre regarding receiving illegal foreign funding. But the Income Tax department had flagged donation discrepancies against AAP in February last year. It was the IT dept only who informed the commission that there were discrepancies in the details of donations in two financial years — 2013-14 and 2014-15.

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