NEW DELHI — Faced with allegations of receiving funds from "dubious" companies, the AAP demanded a Supreme Court-monitored Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe funding of all three major parties in Delhi polls and said it was ready to face any action if found guilty.
Asserting that it adopted "total transparency" in its funding, AAP's Yogendra Yadav in a late evening press conference accused BJP of attempting to influence the voters ahead of the February 7 polls by bringing out false allegations.
He was responding to allegations by AAP Volunteer Action Manch (AVAM), a breakaway group of the Aam Aadmi Party, which accused the Kejriwal-led party of receiving Rs 2 crore last year through four "dubious" companies.
"AAP demands constitution of an SIT to probe funding of all three main political parties (AAP, Congress and BJP). The SIT should be monitored by the Supreme Court as we already know how the government can manipulate a probe," he said while daring the parties to disclose their fundings publicly.
Yadav said "strangely instead of inquiring against AAP, the BJP ministers are today making allegations even after sitting on the files for eight months."
He said the party had anticipated such activities by BJP and Kejriwal had warned about it a few days ago.
"Ahead of last assembly polls also, the BJP had brought out a CD which turned out to be false later. They do not allow politics of honesty," Yadav said.
"BJP today knows it does not have the courage to stand before the public. That is why they are adopting such measures," he said, adding that if AAP had anything to hide it would not have put the funding details on its website.
On the midnight timing of realisation of the cheques into AAP's account, he said it was done as per an automated software which updates credit of all the cheques submitted at a particular time of each day.
The AAP also challenged the government to probe the allegations by any central investigating agency including the CBI and Enforcement Directorate.
It all started with Karan Singh and Gopal Goel of AAP Volunteer Action Manch (AVAM) alleging that four donations of Rs 50 lakh each were remitted to the account of AAP from four different "dubious companies" on the midnight of April 15 last year.
"All the four donations hit AAP website on exactly the same date and time around midnight. Later I found they do not have net worth or profits for donating Rs 50 lakh each," Goel claimed. However, AAP claimed that Karan Singh was sacked from the party last year for anti-party activities.
Latching on to AVAM's allegations, BJP mounted a stinging attack on AAP, claiming its funding was dubious and accused the party of indulging in money laundering and pumping in black money.
"The party has been talking a lot about transparency in political funding. The revelations show how this party used illegal and wrong route and indulged in money laundering through hawala and pumped in money into AAP's political funding," Union minister and BJP leader Piyush Goyal said.
Claiming that the funding was against the provisions of law, he said the four companies cannot fund political parties as only those with three years of profits can donate a part of their profits to political parties.