Earlier this month, the Indian National Congress announced a mega crowdfunding donation drive in the run-up to Lok Sabha Elections 2024. However, the party could only secure donations worth Rs 5.35 crores even after the completion of a week of the donation drive.
In a post, the treasurer of the Indian National Congress, Ajay Maken, announced that the party had collected Rs 5.35 crores a week after the campaign was kicked off by Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge. On the first day of the campaign, the party had collected a whopping Rs 1.45 crore rupees!
Ajay Maken wrote, “Till 7:30 pm 25 December, Rs 5.35 crore, On donateinc.in, our #DonateForDesh. Under crowd-funding campaign!! 2 lakh people joined this campaign in just one week!”
The post added, “Now a new initiative, What is the total amount under this campaign? How much amount from which state, What percentage of people from which state took part in this campaign?”
As per Maken’s post on X, Maharashtra is the largest contributor to the Congress party in this crowdfunding campaign, making a generous donation of Rs 82.48 lakh. In contrast, Chhattisgarh recorded the lowest contribution at Rs 18.87 lakh. Delhi followed with donations totaling Rs 38.93 lakh.
The Congress party secured Rs 57.73 lakh (15.85%) from Rajasthan, Rs 47.07 lakh (11.88%) from Uttar Pradesh, Rs 46.84 lakh (4.18%) from Haryana, and Rs 31.56 lakh (4.34%) from Karnataka. Telangana contributed Rs 27.82 lakh (6.45%), Madhya Pradesh Rs 27.09 lakh (6.28%), and Tamil Nadu Rs 24.06 lakh (4.50%) through crowdfunding.
Notably, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, on 18th December, had launched the campaign from New Delhi where he donated Rs 1.38 lakh. On 28th December 2023, the party will mark its 138th anniversary. In alignment with that, it had issued an appeal to its supporters to contribute in multiples of ₹138, while urging its district and state-level workers to donate ₹1380.
However, the paltry collection confirms the fact that the mega donation drive has fallen flat. The dry spell in donations has one major reason apart from the fact that voters’ confidence has eroded in the grand old party in the backdrop of recurrent seizures of unaccounted cash from Congress leaders. The reason is the failure of the party’s IT cell in locking top-level domains (TLDs) for its donation campaign!
Incidentally, the party overlooked a crucial detail in the digital age. They failed to secure the online presence of the campaign! The Congress Party forgot to register the top-level domains (TLDs) for its campaign! Consequently, donatefordesh.com and donatefordesh.org now redirect users to the support page of OpIndia and the donate page of BJP respectively.
For a party that once prided itself on being the front-runner of Indian politics, this minuscule sum only highlights the downfall of its standing in the hearts of the masses. Not to forget, out of the money it has collected, Rs 1.38 lakh was donated by Party President Mallikarjun Kharge.