CHICAGO: Piqued at the somersault by AAP party leaders about transparency in dealings, a Chicago based Indian American physician backed by some principled supporters launched a crusade called Chanda Bandh Satygraha here and in the Indian Capital New Delhi last month. The movement has now caught on with members of the community at large and the crusaders have now gone to the neighboring Indian state of Punjab and according to reports, it has met with huge success there also.
After successful launch of the Chanda Bandh Satyagraha signature drive in New Delhi with more than 20,000 people signing the banner against AAP, the campaign taking place in Punjab from Jan 11 has also evoked good response, according to sources close to the Satyagrahis.
A press conference in Hoshiarpur (Punjab) on Jan 10 was upped with the signature drive in Hoshiarpur and Ahmadpur, the two Punjab cities, and 1000 people reportedly having signed the banner.
Dr Munish Kumar Raizada, the Chicago physician leading the movement, had earlier submitted a petition to Election Commission of India (ECI) regarding the alleged financial misbehavior of AAP
Volunteers of ‘No List No Donation’ campaign are distributing pamphlets in Golden Temple, Amritsar and are speaking about the basics of transparent political system to make public aware of the opaque funding practices in AAP
Earlier, based upon submissions from Dr Munish Raizada, Anna Hazare had questioned Arvind Kejriwal in his letter regarding the unfulfilled promises to him and the people. AAP has also been issued notice by the Indian income tax department regarding opaque funding practices.
The younger generation of Punjab has also come forward to support the Chanda Bandh campaign. An auto driver in Hoshiyarpur said he would not donate even 1 rupee to AAP as it has failed to fulfill its promises to common man.
Not only people, even social groups have also come forward to support the campaign and are creating awareness among people to join the fight against corruption.
Dr Raizada has demanded four specific conditions to be met: Put all donations in public domain; donations should be searchable by name (and not only via receipt number), missing balance sheets after 2014 to be made public and inquiry to be ordered in the dubious donations of R 2 crore that the party received in 2014. Kejriwal had promised an inquiry into this if he came into power.
India Post News Service
