Rajasthan: Congress seeks not only vote but also 'note'

Jaipur: Facing unprecedented financial crunch, the Congress wants people to support it not just with votes, but also “note” in the upcoming Assembly elections in Rajasthan.

The young state Congress president, Sachin Pilot, has gone online to generate funds for the party’s poll campaign. His crowd funding campaign — “How you can oust BJP in Rajasthan” — has generated Rs 2.47 lakh from 168 supporters in three days. The top individual donation is Rs 25,000, while the lowest is Rs 100. There are 74 more days to go.

“We have taken a big step towards transparency in political funding. Please help us in Rajasthan Congress’ crowd funding campaign,” Mr Pilot said in his appeal to citizens.  

According to him, when the government wins with the help of money power, it always remains under the pressure of capitalists. “Only a government formed with the help of people’s support can maintain transparency and serve with honesty,” he said.

However, the move to seek money from supporters and general public is more of a necessity for the party whose taps from business sources have all but dried up. Having lost power at both the Center and in most of the states, the Grand Old Party faces an uphill task for it to build a war chest from traditional route of corporate funding to take on the financial might of the BJP.

Though, Mr Pilot pitches it as “the BJP’s cash power versus people’s power”.

He said, “What matters to us is not money but people’s association. Therefore, we appeal to people to participate to make our crowd funding campaign successful.”

Earlier, the party had experimented with crowd funding in a limited way during the Assembly elections in Karnataka a couple of months ago when it asked people to fund its candidate Molakalmuru against B. Sreeramulu and raised Rs 10 lakh.

On the party’s crowd funding platform, it says, “During Karnataka polls earlier this year, the BJP spent over 300 crore rupees on advertising alone and thousands of crores on the state election. On one hand you have BJP’s billionaire friends giving them thousands of crores of rupees to control the media and public opinion, while on the other hand you have distressed farmers, women, jobless youth and citizens struggling to make a living.”