Funding Polls Is Deepest Fault Line in India: AAP’s Atishi Marlena

Aam Aadmi Party leader Atishi’s crowdfunding drive collects Rs 7 lakhs in 24 hrs.

Atishi Marlena, AAP’s East Delhi parliamentary seat in-charge on Wednesday, 6 February, launched a crowdfunding drive.

(File Photo: IANS)

Barely 24 hours after asking voters to fund her election campaign, Aam Aadmi Party leader Atishi managed to collect donations worth over Rs 7 lakhs. Known for playing a key role in the educational reforms in Delhi, the educationist turned politician said that funding elections is the deepest fault line in the Indian democracy while speaking to BloombergQuint.

“Funding of elections is the deepest fault line that Indian democracy faces because the very people who fund the elections, eventually parties end up working in their interests and not in the interests of people who actually voted for them. So, you see the fact that you have a lot of corrupt contractors, crony capitalists, etc who are funding all political parties and once parties come into power, what they do is hand out contracts to them for large resources, construction, infrastructure.”

Atishi, AAP Leader

Atishi, an alumunus of Oxford University and Delhi’s St Stephens College, and a former advisor to education minister Manish Sisodia, said the biggest challenge that AAP faces in the education front in Delhi is political disruption by the Opposition.

“The repeated complaints from the 7 MPs in Delhi to the LG which have been used as a basis to stall different projects. What this meant was that every change and every reform that we were bringing about as far as private schools are concerned, government schools are concerned, every reform too far longer than it needed to take.” 

Atishi, AAP Leader

Ruling out an alliance with Congress in the Lok Sabha polls, the AAP leader believes that the real fight is between AAP and BJP in the upcoming polls.

“I think it is very clear as far as Delhi’s politics is concerned, Congress is a very distant third in the electoral politics in Delhi. Ever since the AAP has come into being and started contesting elections in Delhi, Congress has come third in every election and they are going to come third this election as well. The real fight is between the AAP and BJP.” 

Atishi, AAP Leader