Lok Sabha elections 2014: A Rs 20,000 per head dinner date with Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal
By Shilpa Phadnis & N D Shiva Kumar, TNN | 8 Mar, 2014, 08.47AM IST
BANGALORE: Not under but at the table; that, too, loaded with food and a conversation with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal. In an initiative new to India, invitations to a fundraiser dinner on March 15 in the city have gone out from V Balakrishnan, former Infosys board member and recent AAP member, to about 200 of the city’s high net worth individuals.Those asked to the by invitation-only event are mainly from the technology, private equity and venture capital sectors.
The fund-raiser — at Rs 20,000 per person — will be held at a hotel in the city centre where Kejriwal will interact with guests for an hour.Fund-raiser dinners are a popular way of raising money abroad by political parties but are new to India and being adopted by new-age political outfits like AAP.
If all goes well, AAP should mobilize at least Rs 40 lakh at Rs 20,000 for 200 guests. The money could be much more: Rs 20,000 the base amount to participate in the dinner.
“You have the opportunity for a no-holds barred discussion with Arvind Kejriwal and the local leadership, on matters important to you,” reads the mail from Balakrishnan. He further writes: “Corruption in this country starts with the way political parties are funded. AAP is trying to change this by raising money from known sources, which are fully accounted for in a transparent way and use that to fund candidates to run elections honestly. Unless all of us support this kind of initiativethe country will never change. I request all of you to attend the dinner and make the pledge.”
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