Foreign Funds: ED says AAP Received $847K between 2014-2022

Recently, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) told the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) that AAP received $850K as foreign funds from 2014 to 2022 and allegedly violated a number of laws. AAP violated the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), the Representation of People Act (RPA), and the Indian Penal Code (IPC). While the ED had submitted a dossier on AAP in August 2023, the fresh communication is based on recovery of documents and emails during a drugs-linked money laundering probe against former Panjab AAP MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira and others. Khaira is contesting these elections as an INC candidate from Sangrur in Panjab. ED claimed  multiple donors from the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, and Oman used the same passport numbers, e-mail IDs, mobile numbers, and credit cards to donate to AAP. AAP dismissed the ED's allegations. Lawyer Harvinder Singh Phoolka, who was part of AAP in 2014, has dissociated himself from the investigation, and stated, ‘I had made clear to AAP that I will not participate in any fundraising for the party. My visit to Canada was as a human rights activist and not for fund raising for the party. None of my addresses were ticketed, nor was any call for fundraising made.’ Another social activist from France, Iqbal Singh Bhatti has also denied involvement in AAP’s funding. Bhatti’s organization Aurore Dawn either sends bodies of Indians killed in France back home or performs last rites in France. Over the past 20 years, Aurore Dawn has handled 371 bodies, of which 122 were cremated in France (SDW Vol. 2 Issue 14, Story 3).