New Delhi/Mumbai:
In his resignation speech,
Arvind Kejriwal said the Congress and BJP ganged up to defeat the Jan Lokpal Bill, because his government had registered a First Information Report or FIR against Reliance chief Mukesh Ambani and other politicians on allegations of corruption in the pricing of gas.
We asked the AAP's team in Mumbai, many of whom are from a corporate background, how this would impact their efforts to raise funds from corporate India.
These include Sameer Nair, former head of Star TV, Manisha Lad Gupta of Axis Bank, Ashish Khaitan of Kotak Bank and Satish Jain, a fund manager with HDFC.
As India's business capital, this group hopes, Mumbai will emerge as the main funder for AAP's national campaign. They have been holding a series of meetings with high net worth individuals (HNIs), singly or in groups, to persuade them to contribute to AAP.
Sameer Nair told us that the FIR against Mr Ambani didn't mean that AAP was anti-business. He said "AAP is in the business of removing corruption".
Manisha Lad Gupta seemed discomfited with the question. When asked whether she considered Mukesh Ambani corrupt, she said it is not for her to say, and that certain facts were put out by her party.
Ashish Khaitan said that all Mr Kejriwal had called for was an independent investigation into the process of gas pricing. When we pointed out that he had gone beyond that, and ordered the registration of an FIR, Satish Jain said that Mr Kejriwal had alleged that the higher pricing of gas was going to have a Rs 54,500 crore impact on consumers and that the cost of gold plating was about one lakh crores.
All of them said that the anti-Ambani tirade by the AAP chief will not impact their fundraising efforts.
In fact, AAP's website shows a sharp jump in donations a day after Mr Kejriwal's resignation: around Rs eight lakh poured in just within 24 hours.
But there is a still a long way to go to meet targets. AAP estimates that they will need to spend about Rs 60-70 lakh per Lok Sabha seat. Given that they may contest around 300-odd seats, this means a war chest of about Rs 250 crore. At the moment, the website shows only a balance of about Rs nine crore.