No 'moneybags' please, Amit Shah urges BJP workers

Taking a moral high ground with an aim to cleanse politics, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP party chief Amit Shah on Monday donated Rs. 1,000 each to the party fund through the NaMo app, urging the party workers to do the same. This, they claimed, was in a bid to reduce the party's dependence on "money bags" donated by industrialists, builders and contractors.

BJP marked the 51st death anniversary of ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyay with a donation campaign. Attaching his donation receipt, PM Modi tweeted, "Deen Dayal Ji emphasised on honesty in public life. Today on his Punya Tithi, BJP is starting a movement #SamarpanDivas to further transparency and clean money in politics."

Explaining that it is currently not possible to run the party on workers' contributions alone, Shah added, "BJP workers should contribute so that they can say with pride that we run this party from our money and no industrialist, contractor, money bag or builder can run it."

According to the latest report of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) — a non-governmental election watchdog — during 2017-18, BJP had declared Rs 553.38 crore as income from unknown sources, which is 80 per cent of the total income (Rs 689.44 crore ) of all five national parties.

Shah went on to urge two workers from each booth to contribute Rs 1,000 each to the party. He also called for a public discussion on reducing election expenses and finding ways to increase transparency in poll funding saying, "If means are not pure, then our goals cannot be attained in a good way."