21 AAP candidates crowdfund Delhi campaign, 18 romp home safe
Taking advantage of crowdfunding, 21 nominees of the Aam Admi Party (AAP) raised resources to finance their campaign for the New Delhi assembly polls in which they successfully trounced the BJP for a second straight time. Out of the 21 candidates, 18 emerged victorious.
Crowdfunding is essentially a concept where small amounts of money are sourced from a large number of people to fund a project or a venture. This is usually done through various online platforms that dedicatedly work for the same.
These 21 nominees raised ₹1.20 crore from 2,876 donors who contributed to the online platform ourdemocracy.in.
Among the donors, 1,313 people gifted money just to Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia alone leading to his becoming the only one to collect ₹28 lakh in just 48 hours.
Manish Sisodia, on Sunday (February 16), retweeted the January 10 tweet thanking all the donors who helped him raise funds for the campaign.
He tweeted, “Today as I restart my journey as minister in @ArvindKejriwal cabinet, I would also like to thank all the people who contributed funds for my election from Patparganj. A total of ₹28 lakh was contributed online within 48 hours.”
Today as I restart my journey as minister in @ArvindKejriwal cabinet, I would also like to thank all the people who contributed funds for my election in patparganj. Total 28 lakh was contributed online within 48 hrs. https://t.co/1cTt4m4X6D
— Manish Sisodia (@msisodia) February 16, 2020
Atishi, another nominee, too managed to collect as much.
It is to be noted that ₹28 lakh is the upper limit for candidates contesting the Delhi assembly polls.
Sanjeev Jha, Saurabh Bhardwaj, and Dinesh Mohaniya are the three who managed to secure more than ₹10 lakh each.
Sanjeev Jha, who collected ₹13.45 lakh from 91 people, is the one who won with the highest margin of more than 88,000 votes from the Burari constituency.
Saurabh Bhardwaj romped home from the Greater Kailash constituency with the aid of 213 donors, who doled out ₹3.27 lakh for him. Sangam Vihar candidate Mohaniya raised ₹11.29 lakh with contributions from 103 donors.
Durgesh Pathak (Karawal Nagar), Nitin Tyagi (Laxmi Nagar) and Sarita Singh (Rohtash Nagar) are the ones who couldn’t make it to the assembly despite having raised more than ₹10 lakh together through crowdfunding.
Amanullah Khan, from Okhla constituency of which Shaheen Bagh is a part, could raise only a paltry ₹26,620 but still managed to secure victory.
The Aam Admi Party (AAP) secured 62 seats in an assembly of 70. Its nearest rival the BJP could manage just 8 seats. The Congress refused to open its account for the second consecutive time.