NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was hit with serious allegations of money laundering on Monday, with a group of their former volunteers claiming that the party had received huge donations from bogus companies.
The AAP Volunteer Action Manch (AVAM), which had formed last July, addressed a press conference on Monday at the Press Club of India where they alleged that four bogus companies made donations amounting to Rs50 lakhs each to the the party last year.
Worse, they claimed to have found 31 such companies which have donated to AAP in a similar manner. "The donation was given in 2014 but the company has not earned a single rupee or done any business. Where do they get their money from," AVAM member Gopal Goyal told CNN-IBN.
However Arvind Kejriwal has said that all transactions were legitimate and he was ready for a probe. He tweeted out that BJP was losing the Delhi polls and was thus spinning stories on AAP. Claiming that this was a test for Delhi's voters, he said he was confident they would side with the truth.
भाजपा दिल्ली चुनाव हार गयी है। मेरे और 'आप' के खिलाफ बहुत बड़े षड़यंत्र रचे जा रहे हैं। दिल्ली की जनता का इम्तिहान है। जनता सच का साथ देगी
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) February 2, 2015
Meanwhile AVAM in its press conference claimed that they had checked the addressed of donor companies as listed in AAP's website and found many companies whose location details were bogus.
“We are not in the business of unsubstantiated allegations,” an AVAM official told Zee News. "If this is clean politics then what is dirty politics?"
"AAP made dummy entries to evade tax," AVAM said. "AAP is indulging in money laundering."
AAP's Yogendra Yadav dismissed allegations, saying, "The Centre is rattled."
"BJP runs govt, Take Action, Punish Me if any wrongdoing. Our donations disclosed" @ArvindKejriwal on Hawala charge pic.twitter.com/rXQxavPrbK
— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) February 2, 2015
"AAP is the only party in the country that maintains transparency on its funding. The UPA and the NDA government had probed our funding and found nothing wrong," the party leader said.
"Every rupee donated to the party is displayed on its website for public scrutiny. The AAP funding has already been probed twice by successive central governments, both the UPA and now the NDA government. The AAP challenges the BJP-led NDA central government to probe its funding from any of the agencies at its command as many times as it wants," AAP said in a statement refuting the allegations.