Shah: BJP should run on workers’ contributions
Delhi, Feb. 11: The BJP should run with contributions from its workers, its president Amit Shah said on Monday, asserting that the party’s path to reach its goals will be maligned if it depends on donations from “moneybags, builders, contractors and those with black money”.
Mr Shah also called for a public debate on reducing election expenses and bringing probity in poll funding.
He expressed co- nfidence that such an exercise will begin under his party and will lead other parties towards probity.
Addressing party workers on the 51st death anniversary of BJP’s ideological guide Deen Dayal Upadhyay, he asked party workers to donate a part of their earnings to the organisation and said at least two in every booth across the country should contribute ` 1,000 through Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s app or through cheques. Mr Modi and he have already made their contributions, Shah said.
BJP workers should say with pride that they run the party from their money and some “industrialist, contractor, money bag or builder cannot run it”.
The BJP chief also cited Upadhyay to say a goal cannot be attained with “purity” if the means to attain it are not pure.
He, however, added that as party president he cannot say the BJP can fund all its organisational and election expenses from its workers’ contributions. “This is not possible today,” he said.
“If the means are not pure, then our goals cannot be attained in a good way. If the party has to be kept pure... If the party starts running from the money of moneybags, builders, contractors, those with black money, then it will malign our means to realise our goals,” he said.