A crowdfunding drive by the AAP's East Delhi parliamentary seat in-charge Atishi generated endorsements from Yashwant Sinha, Javed Jaffery and Jignesh Mewani among others, besides yielding a donation of Rs two lakh within a few hours Wednesday.
The Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) has nominated in-charges on six of the seven Lok Sabha constituencies in Delhi, who are expected to be soon declared as the official candidates of the party in the coming elections.
"The drive was launched by Atishi at 3 pm on Wednesday. Several senior political leaders, including former Union minister Yashwant Sinha, Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani, actor Javed Jaffery, lawyer-activist Karuna Nundy, among others endorsed the campaign," a party statement said.
Party leaders said the campaign will continue online with a target to raise Rs 70 lakh, the permissible limit of expenditure in parliamentary polls as per the Election Commission.
Yashwant Sinha tweeted a video endorsing Atishi's work. "Atishi's efforts have dramatically improved the condition of Delhi's government schools. Someone like her needs to have a voice in Parliament. I appeal to the people of East Delhi to vote for her and elect her to the Lok Sabha," Sinha said in the video.
Supporting the campaign, actor Javed Jaafery said Atishi's presence in Parliament would ensure that public education becomes a part of the political discourse.
Gujarat MLA Mewani said Atishi will be an impactful presence in the Parliament, which has "too few" women members.
Within three hours of the launch of the campaign on crowdfunding platform www.OurDemocracy.in, over Rs two lakh was donated by supporters of the AAP leader, the party statement said.