Below is an email by one Rajeev Bajwa to Arvind Kejriwal and Pankaj Gupta (dated March 30, 2015) complaining of irregularities in donated funds. Aam Aadmi Party should act on this person’s request and take appropriate action. This email has been leaked by a dissenting volunteer of AAP.
Hello Arvind ji & Pankaj ji,
My name is Rajeev Bajwa and I am AAP supporter from day one and one of the leading Donors from New Zealand and also one of three POC’s of New Zealand.
I am writing in regards to the CASH DONATIONS (Rs. 49000.00) deposited on dated 06/05/2014 into the personal account of Ms. Preety Mehra’s ICICI Noida Branch (Receipt attached)
BACKGROUND / OVERVIEW :
During Lok Sabha (PUNJAB) Elections May 2014 – S. Kaharg Sing Sidhu ji’s took initiative and made an efforts to do a fund raiser night for AAP and we raised 10 lac of Donations on that night.
Out of these collected Donations;
8 Lac out of 10 lacs raised by sidhu ji was transferred via Girish Mailar’s Indian passport – this caused us some trouble – We received many complaints from other volunteers that Girish has accepted all thanks and credits on his individual name and projected him self as he has donated this from his own pocket where as donations were collected in a fund raiser dinner – Resultant marked “?” on Girish’s integrity amongst all other volunteers in NZ.
2 Lacs were transferred via my own Indian Passport – I declared every single rupee of that on social media giving all the due credit to all volunteers & donors especially Sidhu ji.
Couple of days before Varanasi elections Girish contacted me and asked to arrange an urgent funds transfer of Rs.100,000.00 into Preety Mehra’s PERSONAL account held at ICICI Noida Branch.
When I asked reason that why we can not donate directly into AAP official account then Girish insisted me not to transfer into official AAP account because volunteers are not getting any funds in Varanasi and they are desperate for financial support and Girish assured & confirmed that it is coming from reliable source which includes Shalini Gupta, Prayas Chaudhary, Vijay Sirohi.
Girish further assured me & Sidhu ji that a proper official AAP donation receipt will be provided.
I discussed this matter with S. Kharag Singh Sidhu (2nd AAP POC of NZ in Auckland)
Considering the critical situation and as explained by Girish that the request is coming from reliable AAP volunteers we decided to go ahead however I decided to ring Pankaj Gupta ji for clarification on this.
I called Pankaj Gupta ji’s personal mobile – Pankaj ji was very busy and asked me to call one his assistant.
I spoke to Pankaj ji’s assistant and I was told that it is NOT allowed to donate in ANY of the volunteers personal accounts and I was asked to provide names of those volunteers if someone is asking to transfer funds into their personal accounts.
I further raised this feedback with Girish & Sidhu ji that it is NOT officially recommended and is a BIG NO NO.
Girish then contacted these volunteers and provided their phone numbers in India, I spoke to Anurag, he said he is in Varanasi with Varun Gupta and they are 20 -30 people and they ran out of funds and do not have any support from AAP at that stage and they desperately need cash to arrange food for volunteers.
He also promised to send us photos of current location and scenario once they get a chance.
After considering all this and thinking we need to take risk, we (Sidhu ji, Myself) agreed to Girish’s request to send them money. Girish further insisted that they need money immediately so I had to call my Father in India (Hoshiarpur) to deposit Rs. 100,000.00 into the personal account of Preety Mehra (wife of Varun Gupta – Seattle USA) held at ICICI Noida branch.
My father was very busy so he had to send one of his employee (Manjit Singh) to deposit cash in Preety’s a/c –
To ensure that money has been received by correct person, I tried to contact Anurag & Varun repeatedly on their mobiles but they did not pick up my phone at all. Luckily it was only first installment of Rs.49000.00 out of one lac was deposited. As you can not deposit more that Rs49000.00 cash in one particular day otherwise banks ask for further details of income etc, etc..
Later after raising this matter further with Girish, I was given an online meeting details on fuse so that I can clarify if I want to clarify this matter further but I never received any official donation receipt or any photos from Varanasi as promised by Varun Gupta & Anurag over the phone.
After two days of chase I received a wahts up message that Rs. 49000.00 were received into Preety’s account.
Till date Varun Gupta failed to make ANY effort to clarify this unaccounted donation received by him rather it seems to me that he is avoiding this matter including me personally on all fronts i.e. social media etc.
I may be wrong and my observations may be wrong – I am not trying to judge any ONE person here. All I want to REQUEST you is that please chase this tail so that we can find out if there are any MORE similar anomalies in FUNDS transferred to personal accounts.
Regards,
Rajeev Bajwa
[Note: This email describes a donation clearly made against the advice of AAP leaders. It is also written after the current crisis in AAP emerged and as such, I see this more as a complaint of misdeeds by rogue volunteers/workers than an allegation on the party itself.]