Delhi Elections- Proxy companies pumped Rs 2 crore into Arvind Kejriwal's campaign

(DNA)

A group of estranged Aam Aadmi Party volunteers, on Monday, accused the AAP of money laundering and running a 'funding scam'. The AVAM, or AAP Volunteer Action Manch, said on April 5, 2014 midnight, AAP received Rs 50 lakh each from four 'bogus' companies. It said AAP has made Rs 2 crore out of shell companies, which have given fake addresses in their information and alleged that AAP has made dummy entries in their donations to evade taxes.

AAP, in its defence, said the payments to AAP were made via cheques, in accordance with donation policy, which leaves a bank trail. The Central government is welcome to investigate, AAP top rung leaders said.

The companies involved are Goldmine Buildcon Pvt Ltd, Skyline Metals and Alloys Pvt Ltd, Sunvision Agencies Pvt Ltd and Infolance Software Solution Ltd. All four have directors in common.

dna has found out that Hem Parkash Sharma is director of Infolance, Skyline and Goldmine, Dharmendra Kumar is director of Infolance and Sunvision, Ajay Kumar Upadhyay and Yogesh Kumar are directors of Sunvision, Skyline and Goldmine, and Mukesh Kumar is the director of Infolance and Goldmine.

One Mohit and a Deepak Agarwal are directors of one company each, Sunvision and Skyline respectively.

These men look like frontmen and are directors in several other companies. Except Mohit (who is director in three companies), all other five men are directors in 10 companies each. However, who the shareholders are is not yet known.

Goldmine’s registered address is D8 Gokulpuri. In reality, a small-time shop stands at this address that has nothing to do with the company.

The donations are made conspicuous by the fact that on March 25, 2014, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal announced his candidature from Varanasi for the Lok Sabha elections and on April 10 filed his nomination. The timing suggests that these funds were for the Lok Sabha campaign.

In June, AVAM was formed by a group of AAP volunteers unhappy with the party’s functioning. They were backed by former AAP leader Shazia Ilmi, who had by then quit the party, and later endorsed by AAP founder Shanti Bhushan. The AAP, however, had not endorsed them.

Shazia Ilmi, who recently joined the BJP, started targeting AAP’s promise of transparency as soon as the news broke, along with Union Ministers Piyush Goyal and Nirmala Sitharaman. With only five days left for the Delhi elections, this is the biggest ammunition the BJP has got so far against a highly popular AAP.

Catching on the timing of the donations, Ilimi has termed it “hawala at midnight or ghotala at midnight”.

Piyush Goyal, calling it a “serious matter” has asked for a probe by the Election Commission and Sitharaman has asked AAP to now stop lecturing other parties.

AAP, however, has its defence ready, saying all its donations are accepted via cheques. It said that since all cheques, post realisation in banks are uploaded on the party website by its software in batches during night hours, “the malicious campaign about transactions at midnight is completely incorrect.”

Since cheques leave a trail, and are duly cleared by banks, AAP appears confident that its accounts are in order.

However, asked about a probe, Sitharaman, being evasive, said, “Later we will see what will happen.” For now, the BJP sees it as a political weapon.

The AVAM plans to keep the matter alive for the next few days, announcing more news conferences on its website.