Bengaluru: Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress party in order to project itself as a ‘clean party’ in the country, has appealed to its leaders to deposit at least Rs 10,000 per booth committee to meet the poll expenses to face the parliament elections in 2019.
Congress party general secretary, K.C. Venugopal on Sunday appealed to party leaders to contribute at least Rs 10,000 from each booth level committee to the party kitty.
Speaking to reporters here after the party office bearers meeting, Mr Venugopal said, "Yes, the party needs money to fund its campaign across the country. We need to collect funds, that is why we have fixed a contribution of Rs 10,000 per booth from our leaders. This money will be spent to organise the party's campaign in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls from the booth level to national level."
He added that the party was looking at other avenues as well to meet its poll expenses by collecting members fee and deposits from party members.
"The amount may be small, but we need it as we are facing a cash crunch," he said.
It may be recalled that the election watchdog, Association For Democratic Reforms (ADR) had released its report on party funds in May this year, in which it had mentioned that the Congress had an income of $33m in 2017 when compared with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is the richest with a whopping income of $151.5m. By far, the Congress is still India's second richest party, but its income in 2017 showed a dip of around $5.3m. The BJP's income, on the other hand, had more than doubled from what it earned in 2016. After this report was published, the Congress party had wasted no time and tweeted in May appealing to people to contribute to the party kitty.
