India Against Corruption, a movement to fight graft, has been rocked further by revelations that it collected funds totalling `2.94 crore from voluntary contributions. The use of these funds has become another bone of contention between donors and Arvind Kejriwal, who has branched out to try and fulfil his personal political ambitions.
When some contributors wished that the money be returned, Mr Kejriwal was said to be willing to give it all back but the Gandhian, Anna Hazare, stated his opinion that the money may be kept by IAC. Some of those who had contributed had a point — that with the decision to enter politics having been made by the IAC leader, the money had to be returned since the movement was about fighting graft and not entering the race for votes and political power.
The surfacing of differences over money, even if they are minuscule amounts, is a pointer to the difficulties of fighting graft on the grounds that politicians and political parties are prone to collecting funds as a means to further their attempts to gain power. Also, this is not the first occasion on which IAC has been under a cloud over money. One of its founding members, Kiran Bedi, was hard put to explain why she
collected business class fares on behalf of the movement for her trips but flew economy. IAC may have already been taught the lesson that the strict norms of transparency must apply as much to it as to political
parties.