BJP, Cong guilty of accepting foreign funds illegally: AAP

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 16

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) today denied any violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) while receiving funds and in turn accused the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre of amending the law through “backdoor” (Money Bill) to “save” it from prosecution by implementing the legislation retrospectively.

Addressing reporters here today, senior AAP leader Atishi Marlena said, “The FCRA was amended through the backdoor by introducing it as a Money Bill by the BJP last year, shielding it from a Rajya Sabha veto.”

Pointing out that amendment changed the meaning of “foreign sources” in a manner that would legalise the donations made by Vedanta to both the Congress and the BJP; Marlena said “This retrospective protection would only make valid donations made after 2010. The donations received by both from Vedanta from 2004 to 2010 continue to be illegal, and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) must take action against them immediately.”

The AAP referred to the Delhi High Court March 2014 order saying that both the Congress and the BJP were held “guilty of illegally accepting foreign funds” in 2014 in violation of the FCRA and then Union Home Ministry told the Delhi HC in 2014 and 2015 that the AAP’s funding had no discrepancies and was clean and in adherence to the FCRA.

“The high court had indicted both the Congress and the BJP and directed the Election Commission and the MHA to take appropriate action against the two within six months for receiving illegal foreign funding from Vedanta subsidiaries,” Marlena said while adding that the BJP government attempted to retrospectively amend the FCRA to "overturn" the HC's decision against the BJP and the Congress in December 2016.

More than a year later, in June 2015, the Election Commission wrote to the MHA pushing for action against the two parties while in response to a contempt case filed against the Central government for failing to comply with the court's decision, the HC has sought a reply from the BJP government over its non-compliance, and has asked why contempt proceedings should not be initiated.

Hitting out at the BJP government, AAP leader Dilip Pandey claimed that the AAP has set “high standards of probity” for other parties to follow noting that the MHA, both during the Congress rule in 2014 and under the BJP in 2015 has stated before the Delhi High Court that there are no “discrepancies” in AAP’s funding.