After the Income Tax department issued a notice to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) citing discrepancies in the donors’ list submitted to tax officials and details uploaded on their website, the party leaders termed it “malicious” and alleged that the Centre is harassing the party and targeting its donors.
Inadvertent error
Raghav Chadha, the party’s national treasurer, said that initially there was an inadvertent error in the list submitted to the Income Tax Department, which has been rectified in the revised ITR after receiving the notice. “To revise an I-T return is the legitimate right of a party. Not even a single donation is concealed by the Aam Aadmi Party. We maintain 100 per cent transparency in donors’ details and the amount we receive. The I-T department had issued us a notice and we have revised the I-T return,” he said.
Harassment of donors
The party had removed the donors’ list from its website claiming that its donors were being harassed by tax officials. Arvind Kejriwal on Monday had tweeted, “AAP receives less than 8% of its donations in cash against 70-80% cash donations by Cong-BJP.”
Another AAP leader blamed technical glitches for the error. “While we put all donations on the website, at times there are some technical errors. For instance, there have been cases in which a donor has tried to make payment, but the transaction could not be completed. In that case, our website reflected that payment has been made, but we did not receive money in our bank account,” the leader said.
As per the website, the last donation received by the party was on July 6 of Rs 15,249 from 14 donors.
