Donation from Mukesh Ambani: AAP’s Yogendra Yadav denies reports

NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party was at the centre of a controversy on Wednesday as television channels and news websites reported that the party’s chief ideologue, Yogendra Yadav, could not articulate a clear stand on whether AAP would accept donations from Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani.

According to newsreports, Yadav, while addressing reporters in Mumbai on Tuesday, offered a vague response to the question. “If they give us Rs 9,99,999, and if people of Mumbai accept it, then it would not go to (AAP’s) Political Affairs Committee. Once it crosses Rs 10 lakh, then this issue will be placed before AAP’s supreme authority, the Political Affairs Committee, which will deliberate on whether this money is tainted,” India Today website quoted him as saying.

Yadav, however, denied making any vague comment on this issue. He told ET that he had been quoted out of context and that the party will not accept donation from Ambani. “I was trying to clarify that if the money is less than Rs 10 lakh and is donated online then it’s possible we might not discover it immediately. But once it comes to our notice the money will be returned,” he told ET.

Arvind Kejriwal, during his stint as Delhi Chief Minister, had asked the anti-corruption bureau to file an FIR accusing petroleum minister Veerappa Moily of conspiring with Ambani to raise the price of natural gas from $4.2 per million British thermal unit to $8 per unit, bestowing billions of windfall profit on RIL.