Arvind Kejriwal is an Indian politician and former civil servant who served as the 7th
Chief Minister of Delhi from 28 December 2013 to 14 February 2014. He is the leader of the
Aam Aadmi Party. Kejriwal is a graduate of the Indian Institute
of Technology Kharagpur and worked for the Indian Revenue Service as a Joint Commissioner
in the Income Tax Department. In 2006, Kejriwal was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay
Award for Emergent Leadership recognising his involvement in a grassroots movement using
right-to-information legislation in a campaign against corruption. The same year, after resigning
from the IRS, he donated his Magsaysay award money as a corpus fund to found the Public
Cause Research Foundation, a non-governmental organisation.
In 2012, he launched the Aam Aadmi Party, and defeated Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit
in the 2013 Delhi Legislative Assembly election. Following the election, he took office as
the Chief Minister of Delhi on 28 December 2013. He resigned 49 days later, on 14 February
2014, stating he did so because of his government's inability to pass his proposed anti-corruption
legislation due to a lack of support from other political parties.
Early life Kejriwal was born in a middle-class family
in Siwani, Bhiwani district, Haryana on 16 August 1968, the first of the three children
of Gobind Ram Kejriwal and Gita Devii. His father was an electrical engineer who graduated
from the Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, and whose work led to many changes in the
family's residence. Kejriwal spent most of his childhood in north Indian towns such as
Sonepat, Ghaziabad and Hisar. He was educated at Campus School in Hisar and at a Christian
missionary school at Sonipat. Kejriwal graduated from the Indian Institute
of Technology in Kharagpur, majoring in mechanical engineering. He joined Tata Steel in 1989
and was posted in Jamshedpur. Kejriwal resigned in 1992, having taken leave of absence to
study for the Civil Services Examination. Kejriwal spent some time in Kolkata, at the
Ramakrishna Mission in North-East India and at Nehru Yuva Kendra.
Early career Kejriwal joined the IRS in 1995 after qualifying
through the Civil Services Examination. In 2000, he was granted two years' paid leave
to pursue higher education on condition that upon resuming his work he would not resign
from the Service for at least three years. Failure to abide by that condition would require
him to repay the salary given during the leave period. He rejoined in 2003 and worked for
18 months before taking unpaid leave for 18 months. In February 2006, he resigned from
his position as a Joint Commissioner of Income Tax in New Delhi. The Government of India
claimed that Kejriwal had violated his original agreement by not working for three years.
Kejriwal said that his 18 months of work and 18 months of unpaid absence amounted to the
stipulated three-year period during which he could not resign and that this was an attempt
to malign him due to his involvement with Team Anna, a strand of the Indian anti-corruption
movement. The dispute ran for several years until, in 2011, it was resolved when he paid
his way out of the Service with the help of loans from friends.
Activism Parivartan
Kejriwal believes in the dictum that "Change begins with small things". In December 1999,
while still in service with the Income Tax Department, he helped found a movement named
Parivartan, focused on assisting citizens in navigating income tax, electricity and
food ration matters in parts of Delhi. The Parivartan organisation exposed a fake ration
card scam in 2008 but, according to a founder member, did not have a great impact generally
and was largely crumbling by 2012. It was for his involvement with Parivartan that Kejriwal
had been given the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership in 2006. The award citation
noted Parivartan and that that "the board of trustees recognizes [Kejriwal's] activating
India's right-to-information movement at the grassroots, empowering New Delhi's poorest
citizens to fight corruption by holding government accountable to the people."
Right to Information Together with Manish Sisodia and Abhinandan
Sekhri, Kejriwal established the Public Cause Research Foundation in December 2006, donating
the prize money he had received from the Ramon Magsaysay Award as a seed fund. This new body
paid the employees of Parivartan. Kejriwal has used the Right to Information Act in corruption
cases in many government departments including the Income Tax Department, the Municipal Corporation
of Delhi, the Public Distribution System and the Delhi Electricity Board.
Jan Lokpal Bill
Kejriwal was the civil society representative member of the committee constituted by the
Government of India to draft a Jan Lokpal bill, following a campaign for introduction
of such legislation that featured Anna Hazare. He had been arrested along with Hazare on
defying Police directive to give a written undertaking that they will not go to JP Park.
He attacked the government on this and said there was a need for a debate over police
power to detain and release people at will. Political career
General Kejriwal established the AAP in November 2012
as he believed that electoral politics was the next logical step in the fight against
corruption. This caused a rift between him and Hazare. The party name reflects the phrase
Aam Aadmi, or "common man", whose interests Kejriwal proposed to represent. He became
the fifth most mentioned Indian politician on social media channels in the run-up to
the Delhi legislative assembly election of 2013.
Chief Minister of Delhi In the 2013 Delhi Legislative Assembly elections
for all 70 seats, the Bhartiya Janta Party won 31 seats, followed by Aam Aadmi Party
with 28 seats. Kejriwal defeated incumbent Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit of the Indian
National Congress in her constituency of New Delhi by a margin of 25,864 votes.
AAP formed a minority government in the hung assembly, with outside support from the eight
Indian National Congress MLAs, one Janta Dal MLA and one independent MLA. Kejriwal was
sworn in as the second-youngest chief minister of Delhi on 28 December 2013, after Chaudhary
Brahm Prakash who became chief minister at the age of 34. He was in charge of Delhi's
Home Ministry, Power, Planning, Finance, Vigilance ministries.
Resignation On 14 February 2014 he resigned as Chief Minister
after failing to table the Jan Lokpal Bill in the Delhi Assembly. He recommended the
dissolution of the Assembly. Kejriwal blamed the Indian National Congress and the Bharatiya
Janata Party for stalling the anti-corruption legislation and linked it with the government's
decision to register a First Information Report against industrialist Mukesh Ambani, chairman
and managing director of Reliance Industries. 2014 national elections
Kejriwal said in January, prior to his resignation as chief minister, that he would not contest
a seat in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Later in that month, party members persuaded him
to change his mind, and on 25 March, he agreed to contest against the BJP prime ministerial
candidate, Narendra Modi, from Varanasi, but lost to Modi.
Personal life Kejriwal is married to Sunita, his batchmate
from National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie and the National Academy of Direct
Taxes in Nagpur. The couple have two children. Kejriwal is vegetarian and has been practising
the Vipassana meditation technique for many years. Kejriwal is known to be averse to ceremony
and does not celebrate his birthday. He has diabetes.
After 5 months of resignation from the post of Delhi's CM, Kejriwal has evacuated the
governmental accommodation in Delhi and shifted to the house situated in Kaushambi.
Awards and recognitions 2004: Ashoka Fellow, Civic Engagement
2005: Satyendra K. Dubey Memorial Award, IIT Kanpur for his campaign for bringing transparency
in Governance 2006: Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership
2006: CNN-IBN Indian of the Year in Public Service
2009: Distinguished Alumnus Award, IIT Kharagpur for Eminent Leadership
2009: Awarded a grant and fellowship by the Association for India's Development.
2010: Policy Change Agent of the Year, Economic Times Awards along with Aruna Roy
2011: NDTV Indian of the Year along with Anna Hazare
2013: CNN-IBN Indian of the Year 2013-Politics 2014: Kejriwal was featured in Time's 2014
Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.
Authored books Swaraj. HarperCollins Publishers India. 2012.
ISBN 9350299372. References
External links Official Website
Arvind Kejriwal on Twitter Arvind Kejriwal on Facebook