Arvind Kejriwal rose India’s political scene through his anti-corruption campaign that culminated in a massive sit-in at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar in 2011. With talks with the then-Manmohan Singh government not ending the stalemate over a Janlokpal Bill — a model law to fight corruption in India, proposed by India Against Corruption, which led the protests of which veteran Gandhian Anna Hazare became the face of the movement — Kejriwal, his aide Manish Sisodia and others broke away from the movement and formed a political party, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to contest the 2013 Delhi Assembly election.
In the first assembly election that the AAP contested, it emerged second-largest after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which fell short of the majority mark in the 70-member Delhi Assembly, and refused to stake claim to government formation. Ironically, Kejriwal formed the government with the support of the Congress, against whose government the entire anti-corruption had been built.
The first Kejriwal government lasted only 49 days as he resigned over the issue of Janlokpal Bill as the AAP and the Congress could not settle their differences.
In the next Delhi election that happened in 2015, Kejriwal led the AAP to a surprising victory, with his party winning 67 of the 70 assembly seats. The Congress was wiped out. His party’s victory came against the backdrop of a strong Modi wave that had seen the BJP storm to power at the Centre, also winning all seven Lok Sabha seats from Delhi.
Kejriwal repeated the magic in 2020, with his AAP winning 63 assembly seats in Delhi. The BJP came second, and the Congress again failed to open its account in the assembly. This AAP victory too came less than a year after a stronger Modi wave that saw the BJP cross the 300-figure in the Lok Sabha, winning all seven Delhi seats again.
In between, Kejriwal’s political tussle with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP intensified. He contested the 2014 Lok Sabha election against Modi at the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh. He blamed the Modi government for his political contests with the Delhi lieutenant governors, alleging that the official head of the Delhi government was not letting the elected government work for the people of the national capital territory.
The Kejriwal government and the AAP came under the scanner over the controversial excise policy it enforced in 2021. The policy was withdrawn but it saw a number of AAP leaders including ministers being arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) over the charges of corruption and money laundering. Kejriwal was also arrested in the same case and was last week granted bail by the Supreme Court. He spent over six months in jail.
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Kejriwal quits as Delhi chief minister after 9 years in office
