 "On the campaign trail: The AAP candidates who have received the highest donations")
In a trend not seen in India before this election, the Aam Aadmi Party is publishing how much each candidate is receiving in donations for their campaigns.
According to the list onmy.aamaadmiparty.org,the candidate receiving the highest donation (by total value) so far is - no surprises for guessing - Arvind Kejriwal. Contesting from Varanasi, where he will fight the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, Kejriwal has attracted about Rs 52 lakh in donations from 1,464 donor contributions to his campaign.
IPS Khopade, a retired police inspector general and author contestingfrom the Baramati constituency in Maharashtra, and Kumar Viswas, a Hindi literature professor contesting from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, received the second-largest donations of about Rs 20 lakh each.
Following closely are Alok Agarwal, an IIT graduate-turned-social activist contesting from Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh, and Ashish Khetan, an investigative journalist from the New Delhi constituency: they generated about Rs 14 lakh each in donations.
Among the more high-profile candidates, activist Medha Patkar , contesting from Mumbai North East, attracted nearly Rs 14 lakh in donations.
Meera Sanyal , the former chairperson of Royal Bank of Scotland who is contesting from Mumbai South, has received donations of around Rs 2 lakh, according to the AAP’s website.The former chairperson and CEO of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS India), who contested in 2009 as an independent candidate from the same constituency, had campaigned for Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in New Delhi for the state elections late last year.
V Balakrishnan , a former Infosys senior executive contesting from Bangalore Central, has generated donations of Rs 6 lakh. Balakrishnan joined the party one day after quitting Infosys, where he worked for 22 years.
According to the AAP’s website, all the candidates mentioned above (barring Kejriwal) are seeking Rs 40,00,000 in donations.
For more details on the donations made to individual candidates, click here.So far, the AAP is the only party to provide a break-down of its donations. Neither the BJP nor the Congress has provided any such details.