Starting as an anti-corruption movement, then morphing into a political party that managed to win votes in Delhi and got decimated in the Lok Sabha polls, only to rise again and sweep the Capital.
A new book, “Capital Conquest”, written by senior journalist and commentator Saba Naqvi, chronicles the ups and downs of the Aam Aadmi Party.
Ms. Naqvi, who has covered national politics for the past two decades, writes that the AAP’s victory in the Delhi Assembly elections in February is the “first successful experiment in alternative politics” in the world’s largest democracy.
The book starts with the beginning of the India Against Corruption movement, which evolved from a public meeting in November 2010, that Ms. Naqvi writes, was organised mostly by yoga guru Ramdev’s followers.
She then states that Mr. Kejriwal had started drafting the Jan Lokpal Bill when he decided to visit Anna Hazare’s village in Maharashtra to invite him to lead the agitation.
One of the volunteers from that time, Ram Kumar Jha, is quoted in the book as saying that Mr. Kejriwal oversaw the planning, including drafting pamphlets and setting the stage. After the initial success of the protests, interest fizzled out and two different groups emerged from the Anna movement, writes Ms. Naqvi. Those who wanted to get into politics and those who didn’t.
The party’s decision to contest the Delhi Assembly elections in 2013, form a government, resign and fight the Lok Sabha polls are all detailed in the book using exclusive interviews with the leaders and volunteers, apart from Ms. Naqvi’s reporting.
Mini-profiles of young party workers who gave up their jobs to work for the three electoral campaigns gives an insight into what really drove the AAP to victory. The real heroes of the AAP are the young people associated with it, writes Ms. Naqvi, adding that “the AAP is a work-in-progress”.
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, seen as the right-hand man of Mr. Kejriwal, is quoted as saying: “The great thing about Arvind Kejriwal is not that he is honest, committed and courageous…what makes him so special is that he genuinely loves people and being around them.”
From the 2014 Lok Sabha campaign in Varanasi to the Assembly polls in Delhi earlier this year, the book looks at how the AAP managed to get from a near total loss to a historic sweep.
