Jignesh Mevani is elevating funds by means of a marketing campaign within the controversial platform ‘Our Democracy’: Details

The controversial crowdfunding platform ‘Our Democracy’ that was utilized by some Modi haters is on-line once more. This time, Congress chief Jignesh Mevani has been seen utilizing it extensively to lift funds for his election marketing campaign. Mevani’s marketing campaign was launched on the web site on November 16.

On the launch of the marketing campaign, Mevani launched a video and claimed that being a “non-corrupt” MLA shouldn’t be straightforward within the time of the “sale and purchase” of MLAs. He additional added that he was preventing with the “BJP Forces”.

https://t.co/s1B8AURBC2
जनता की लड़ाई जनता के चंदे से।
ऊपर दिए गए लिंक पर क्लिक करें और मुझे चुनाव लड़ने में मदद करें। pic.twitter.com/BFSlfQsfqT

— Jignesh Mevani (@jigneshmevani80) November 16, 2022

Interestingly, Jignesh urged folks to unfold the hyperlink on WhatsApp, the platform he has been ridiculing for a very long time. He has been seen mocking BJP supporters by hinting they get their knowledge from “WhatApp University”, a slang used for faux information unfold on the messaging platform.

Jignesh urged his followers to make use of WhatsApp to unfold marketing campaign hyperlink. He had ridiculed WhatsApp prior to now. Source: Twitter

Another attention-grabbing facet of Jignesh’s marketing campaign on Our Democracy is that it doesn’t point out his political affiliation. Though Jignesh is contesting Congress’s ticket from the Vadgam seat, there isn’t any point out of the Congress get together on the marketing campaign web page. Last time, Mevani gained the election as an unbiased candidate with Congress’s assist. Notably, former Congress chief Manilal Vaghela who had gained the 2012 election from Vadgam, is contesting the election in opposition to Mevani on BJP’s ticket.

SS of Jignesh’s marketing campaign on ourdemocracy.in. Source: Our Democracy

Mevani has been asking for Rs 40 lakh to contest the elections. So far, he has raised over Rs 6.9 lakh. Started by one Divya Gaur, there have been over 650 supporters of the marketing campaign by the point this report was printed. Top donors included a donor named Teesta Setalvad, who donated Rs 30,000. It is unclear if this was the identical Setalvad who was lately arrested by the Gujarat police for allegedly conspiring in opposition to then-Chief Minister Narendra Modi and trying to get capital punishment for him within the Gujarat Riots 2002 case. It shouldn’t be doable to establish the actual id of the donor. Notably, the web site required PAN card particulars for donations above Rs 2,000.

Teesta Setalvad’s title appeared in high donor’s checklist. Source: Our Democracy
The controversial historical past of ‘Our Democracy’

In January 2022, OpIndia reported that the web site Our Democracy had gone offline mysteriously. The platform had given area to the likes of then-Congress supporter (now TMC chief) Saket Gokhale, Congress chief Kanhaiya Kumar, AAP chief Aatishi Marlena and plenty of others. Mevani had additionally used the platform beforehand.

Notably, in November 2019, Gokhale tweeted a hyperlink to his crowdfunding platform asking folks to cough up cash as a result of he selected to surrender his ‘cushy job’ to ‘fight the BJP/RSS’, which he often did with submitting frivolous RTIs which value simply Rs 10. He urged different Modi haters to assemble and pay him so he may pay his payments and never must take up an everyday job. Later, a number of donors raised questions over how Gokhale used the funds collected.

At that point, OpIndia dug somewhat deeper into the crowdfunding platform and located some curious connections. Former NDTV journalist Bilal Zaidi, who had additionally labored with channels comparable to Times Now and WION, began the platform ‘Crowdnewsing’ with one Anand Mangnale, an internet crowdfunding platform for unbiased journalists. This was again in 2017.

However, simply earlier than the 2019 common elections, they determined to increase the platform and altered it to ‘OurDemocracy’ and supplied the platform even to politicians like Kanhaiya Kumar and Atishi Marlena and unemployed people like Saket Gokhale who had stop their jobs to file RTIs full time.

We additionally discovered that Anand Mangnale, the cofounder of Crowdnewsing in addition to ‘OurDemocracy’, had planted himself in WhatsApp teams in January 2020 through the violence that came about in JNU, the place he gave the impression to be coordinating the violence that was happening on the campus.

His quantity appeared in a SS shared by Barkha Dutt. A Google search of the quantity which Dutt inadvertently shared on Twitter revealed it was the identical quantity Congress had used for a crowdfunding marketing campaign. That web page has now been taken off. Anand Mangnale has beforehand labored with TMC’s ballot strategist Prashant Kishore, who had earlier labored as a strategist for ex-Congress President Rahul Gandhi in 2016 forward of the Uttar Pradesh state meeting elections. OpIndia couldn’t independently confirm whether or not Mangnale was a part of the group for Rahul Gandhi’s alleged “image makeover”.

Our Democracy made a comeback in July this 12 months. On July 4, they introduced on Twitter that that they had bought a brand new CEO, Umar Siddiqui.

Source: Twitter

On July 8, they introduced that the web site was stay once more. Though the exercise since then was minimal, it began pushing movies and marketing campaign hyperlinks for Jignesh on November 17.

Source: Twitter

Notably, there are six different campaigns with little or no exercise. One of them is an outdated marketing campaign that was began for AAP candidate Cynthia Stephen for the BBMP elections in September of this 12 months. The BBMP elections are scheduled for December. Notably, Cynthia Stephen herself has not shared the hyperlink to the marketing campaign on her official Twitter deal with. However, she shared it as soon as on her Facebook account. The marketing campaign has raised over Rs 64,000.

Source: Facebook

Other campaigners utilizing the platform are AAP chief Hargovan Debhi (collected over Rs 25,000), AAP chief Vipul Parmar (collected over Rs 1,000), AAP chief Ashu Thakur (collected over Rs 49,000), AAP chief Kailashdan Gadhvi (collected nothing), and AAP chief Beena Balguher (collected over Rs 5,000). Mevani’s marketing campaign has been essentially the most profitable to this point. The report of outdated campaigns has been worn out from the web site.