Journalist raises questions about BJP’s ‘stolen’ Rs 95 cr, Prashant Kishor’s finances

Investigative journalist Navneet Chaturvedi has claimed that about Rs 95 crore was “stolen” from the Maharashtra unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party during the last Assembly elections.

In a press release issued on Monday, he wanted to know if this was the amount that the BJP paid to the election strategist Prashant Kishor for his services to the saffron party in the 2014 general polls. “My research got me access to BJP’s central accounts data… Interestingly, BJP accounts books did not show any payments (even of a single rupee) made to Prashant Kishor or to CAG, ‘Citizen for Accountable Governance,’ the company with which he was connected to” at that time.

So, Chaturvedi asks directly: who gave funds to Prashant Kishor during 2014 Lok Sabha elections?

Chaturvedi said he scrutinized Kishor’s Indian Political Action Committee’s (Ipac’s) balance sheet. Its share capital was worth Rs 1 lakh and total turnover around Rs 95 lakh in 2015-16 and Rs 37 lakh the next financial year. So, how does Ipac hire talent from the prestigious IITs and IIMs, asks Chaturvedi, adding that more than 100 employees work with the organization with annual packages about Rs 15 lakh.

“In absence of any other genuine source, it will not be wrong to say that Ipac is being funded through black money,” he alleges.