Breach of FCRA: CBI raids Durgesh Pathak’s residence
NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raided the home of former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA and party’s Gujarat polls co-incharge Durgesh Pathak on Thursday morning over an alleged breach of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). The CBI had filed a case against AAP on Wednesday, accusing it of suspicious foreign contributions.
Based on the FIR registered by the CBI, 155 people who were abroad purportedly used 55 duplicate passport numbers to donate Rs 1.02 crore on 404 occasions to the Aam Aadmi Party. The utilisation of duplicate passport numbers has evoked suspicion of cheating.
AAP retaliated by stating that 201 foreign donors contributed Rs 2.65 crore in 639 transactions via 51 email addresses. The party said that everything was done transparently and duly documented.
AAP leader Manish Sisodia indicated the raid had a politically motivated timing. “When Durgesh Pathak was handed the task of the 2027 Gujarat elections, the CBI raid happened. This is no coincidence; it’s a conspiracy of the BJP, which realises AAP is its only genuine opponent in Gujarat,” Sisodia said.
Pathak has recently been made co-incharge of the forthcoming Gujarat Assembly elections together with Gopal Rai, who has been made the state in incharge. Both leaders had travelled to Gujarat on
April 13, where they met party workers and planned ahead for the elections.
As AAP lost the recent Delhi Assembly elections, the party has lost no time in revamping itself with a massive organisational overhaul. The party has appointed Saurabh Bharadwaj as the new Delhi State president, and Durgesh Pathak has been assigned important tasks in Gujarat.
AAP has decided that it will fight the 2027 Gujarat Assembly polls on its own, without entering into any alliance with the Congress party. AAP had made big gains in the February local body polls, winning 32 seats and coming second on approximately 250 others. AAP has at present four MLAs in the Gujarat Assembly.
Pathak, addressing the media after the raid, said a team of 5-6 CBI officials searched “every corner” of his two-room house in Delhi for nearly four hours. “They searched my bed, cupboard, every page of the books I had, but found absolutely nothing,” he said. “I was not even told the reason for the raid. They simply showed me a warrant and began searching.”
“This was done to scare us. I’ve been made Gujarat Sah-Prabhari and we have just begun our ground-level work. The BJP doesn’t want any opposition in Gujarat,” Pathak alleged.
He also linked the raid to AAP’s previous performance in Gujarat. “In the last Gujarat Assembly elections, AAP got over 41 lakh votes and 5 MLAs. Since then, our leaders like Sanjay Singh were arrested. This is history repeating itself.”
The BJP, however, dismissed these allegations and hit back with sharp accusations of corruption. Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva called AAP a “donation glutton party” and accused Pathak of embezzling party funds sourced through the alleged liquor policy scam.
“Until now, we had heard of donation thieves, but Durgesh Pathak is someone who stole his own party’s donations,” Sachdeva said. “The money collected from the liquor scam was used in the Goa elections, where Pathak was in charge. But instead of using it transparently, he misappropriated the donations himself.” He added, “If the investigating agencies are doing their job, what is the problem? Someone who steals from his own party’s funds is even more corrupt than Lalu Yadav. Once the full report is out, more names will come to light.”
