AAP funds scam: BJP should take on Kejriwal's challenge, allow probe into party finances

It is impossible to disagree with the AAP when it asks for a probe into funding of all political parties, including its own. In the May 2014 Lok Sabha polls, politicians spent anywhere between Rs 18,000 crore to Rs 30,000 crore. We should know where this money came from and the source of income of donors. On Tuesday, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said when a political party accepts money from a company, it should know who the controlling authority of that money is. He is right. There should not only be a thorough probe but also transparent rules and directives for all parties. If the BJP and the Congress agree, the Delhi election may end up ushering in ‘Swacch Bharat’ in politics. [caption id=“attachment_2077711” align=“alignleft” width=“380” class=" “]  Arvind Kejriwal. AP[/caption] The script of the allegations by the Aap Volunteer Action Manch (AVAM) and its aftermath reads like a racey crime thriller. ‘Raat ke kale andhere mein kale dhan ke khel; they have been caught red-handed,’ BJP spokespersons and leaders said, pointing at the midnight transactions between four companies and the AAP. Such drama just dilutes the issue. It is farcical to think that a political party would seek the cover of midnight to accept cheques and then upload them on its website for the public. The real issue here is not when the money was donated, but who gave it or as the BJP pointed out, if the donations were the result of ‘round-tripping’ of money. Media reports have pointed out that the four companies in question are bogus companies with fake addresses. But these companies did not come into existence overnight; they were there even before the birth of AAP. They have been in existence for a long time, have questionable sources of income and nobody knows who owns them. If all this is true, our banking system and financial institutions have failed. Isn’t it the duty of the registrar of companies to verify the address of a registered company? If it registers companies on the basis of a bogus address and it is allowed to exist for several years, obviously a lot of our hard earned money is being wasted on an incompetent department. If somebody is operating a fake bank account, what happened to all the KYC norms that banks are supposed to comply with? If huge amounts of cash are being deposited in accounts and then being paid through cheques, what happened to the directive to banks to report all such transactions to the I-T department? If people are doing this with impunity, why is just the common man required to mention his PAN? There are many bogus companies in India, most of them are fronts for politicians for routing their black money. Their directors are just dummies used by their paymasters to hide benaami deals. We just need to recall the allegations against Robert Vadra to understand how the system works. The crux of the argument against Vadra was that he used several companies with no known source of income to buy huge tracts of land. One of the allegations by IAC (Arvind NGO that raised the issue) read: ‘In the last 4 years, Robert Vadra has gone on a property buying binge and has purchased at least 31 properties mostly in and around New Delhi, which even at the time of their purchase were worth several hundred crores. An analysis of the balance sheets and audit reports of 5 companies set up by him (and owned exclusively by him and his mother) on or after 1/11/2007 show that the total share capital of these companies was just Rs 50 lakh and these companies together had no income from any legitimate business activity (except by way of interest derived from interest free loans obtained from DLF). Yet during 2007-2010 they have acquired properties which were worth well over Rs 300 crore even at their time of acquisition and are worth more than Rs 500 crore as of today.’ It seems, nobody learnt the right lessons from the Vadra episode. All the systemic flaws that he used for allegedly making a fortune still persist. Prima facie, the AVAM episode appears eerily similar to the St Kitts scandal that had hit former Prime Minister VP Singh. In August 1989, a story was published in Kuwait-based ‘Arab Times’ alleging that Singh was the main beneficiary of a secret bank account with deposits amounting to $21 million in Carribean Island St Kitts. Later a probe was ordered. But a CBI inquiry alleged that a conspiracy was hatched by Chandraswami and former external affairs Minister K K Tewari to tarnish Singh’s reputation. The BJP should immediately support the AAP’s demand for a probe into funding of political parties and systemic lapses that help politicians gather black money. It would also tell us whether AVAM is the whistleblower or a shady group inspired by Chandraswami’s ideas. Kejriwal says he is ready to be punished if found guilty. Shouldn’t the BJP accept his challenge?