Delhi Chief Minister Atishi, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate from the Kalkaji assembly seat, while launching a crowdfunding campaign for the party on Sunday, appealed to the residents of the city and the country to support for the party in the upcoming legislative assembly elections.

Releasing an online link for crowdfunding at a press conference here, she urged the people to support and donate her to meet election-related expenses. She said her expenses to fight the polls would be around Rs 40 lakh. Acknowledging the support her party has always received from the people to practice politics of honesty, the chief minister said she was confident that the people would continue to extend their support to their honest party. Atishi said that people from across the city and the country supported the AAP to contest elections during the 2013 as well, the party’s first election. Once again, people supported AAP’s politics during polls while the party has never taken support from any big business houses, she added.

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She further said that her party contests polls with the support of the people to works for them, and not for any other interest. Raising funds through wrong means is very easy but the party never believes or is involved in such practices. “For a CM, raising Rs. 40 lakh through corrupt practices is effortless. Delhi has a budget of Rs. 75,000 crore, and Rs. 40 lakh is just 0.005% of it. If I wanted to collect money dishonestly, through corruption, it would have been very easy. I was reflecting on the projects we’ve recently inaugurated—like the Anand Vihar Flyover, which cost Rs. 350 crore, or the Punjabi Bagh Flyover, which cost Rs. 312 crore.

Over the past year, we’ve spent more than Rs. 100 crore on new school buildings and their renovations. But if we had taken bribes from contractors building these flyovers or schools, we would have seen cracks appearing in these flyovers within a month. Roofs in these school buildings would have started collapsing within a few months, and water would have begun seeping through them,” she added. Meanwhile, AAP leader Reena Gupta, who was also present on the occasion, noted that it was the first time in the history of the country that a sitting CM launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for poll expenses. She said the country needs highly-educated leaders like Atishi, who can take the nation forward.