Aam Aadmi Party

Members of Anna Hazare's Jan Lokpal Bill movement, from which AAP emerged in 2012

The AAP has its origins in the India Against Corruption movement, organised by Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal, and some other social activists who had been involved in Team Anna, a strand of the anti-corruption movement for a Jan Lokpal Bill that had gained momentum in India during 2011 and 2012.[14] Hazare had wanted to keep the movement politically neutral but Kejriwal considered that direct involvement in politics was necessary because attempts to obtain progress regarding the Jan Lokpal Bill through talks with existing political parties had, in his opinion, achieved nothing. A survey conducted on a Facebook page that purported to be operated by India Against Corruption[15] and other social networking services had indicated that there was wide support for politicisation.[16][17] Hazare rejected the poll, saying "elections require huge funds, which will be tough for activists to organise without compromising on their values". He also said it would be difficult to ensure that candidates are not corrupted once elected.[18][19] Hazare and Kejriwal agreed on 19 September 2012 that their differences regarding a role in politics were irreconcilable. Kejriwal had support from some anti-corruption movement activists, such as Prashant Bhushan and Shanti Bhushan, but was opposed by others such as Kiran Bedi and Santosh Hegde. On 2 October,[20] Kejriwal announced that he was forming a political party and that he intended the formal launch to be on 26 November, coinciding with the anniversary of India's adoption of its Constitution in 1949.[16][17]

The party's name reflects the phrase Aam Aadmi ("common man"), whose interests Kejriwal proposed to represent. A party constitution was adopted on 24 November 2012, when a National Council comprising 320 people and a National Executive of 23 were also formed. Both the Council and the Executive were expected to have more members in due course, with the intention being that all districts and all classes of people would have a voice.[17] Various committees were proposed to be formed to draft proposals for adoption by the party in a process that was expected to take several months. Although one aim was to limit nepotism, there were complaints at this initial meeting that the selection of people invited to attend was itself an example of such practices.[21] The party was formally launched in Delhi on 26 November[22] and in March 2013, it was registered as a political party by the Election Commission of India.[23][lower-alpha 1]

On 18 May 2013, a group of Indian Americans from 20 different cities in the USA held a convention in Chicago and extended support to the AAP. The convention was attended by two AAP leaders, Kumar Vishwas and Yogendra Yadav, and Kejriwal addressed it via video conferencing.[25] Aruna Roy and Medha Patkar, who had differences with Kejriwal on certain issues, supported him after his 15-day fast against inflated electricity bills.[26]

On 22 March 2014, the Janata Dal (Secular) party of Delhi announced it would merge with the Aam Aadmi Party, citing Kejriwal's tenure as Chief Minister of Delhi.[27][28]

Two of the founders of the party, Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav, left Aam Aadmi Party and formed Swaraj Abhiyan.[29]

The 2013 Delhi state assembly elections were the party's first electoral contest. The Election Commission approved the symbol of a broom for use by the AAP in that campaign.[49] The party said that its candidates were honest and had been screened for potential criminal backgrounds.[50] It published its central manifesto on 20 November 2013, promising to implement the Jan Lokpal Bill within 15 days of coming to power.[51]

In November 2013, a sting operation conducted by Media Sarkar alleged that several leaders of the AAP, including Kumar Vishwas and Shazia Ilmi, had agreed to extend their support to some people seeking assistance with land deals and other financial arrangements in return for donations in cash to the AAP.[52] Ilmi offered to withdraw her candidature as a result, but the party refused to accept her offer, describing the footage as fabricated and a violation of the Model Code of Conduct.[53] The Election Commission ordered an inquiry regarding the legitimacy of the video.[54]

The AAP emerged as the second-largest party in Delhi, winning 28 of the 70 Assembly seats; the Bharatiya Janata Party, as the largest party, won 31, while its ally Shiromani Akali Dal, won 1; Indian National Congress won 8, and two were won by others.[55][56] On 28 December 2013, the AAP formed a minority government in the hung Assembly, with what Sheila Dikshit describes as "not unconditional" support from Indian National Congress.[57] Kejriwal became the second-youngest Chief Minister of Delhi.[58] As a result of the Delhi elections, the AAP became a recognised state party in Delhi.[59]

The AAP fielded 434 candidates in the 2014 Indian general election, in which it did not expect to do well. It recognised that its support was based primarily in urban areas and that different strategies might be required for different regions of the country. The party pointed out that its funding was limited and that there were too many demands for local visits from Kejriwal. The intention was to field candidates in large numbers to maximise the likelihood of recognition as a national party by the Election Commission.[60][61] The outcome was that four AAP candidates won, all from Punjab.[62] Consequently, the AAP became a recognised state party in Punjab.[63] The party obtained 2% of all votes cast nationwide and 414 of its candidates forfeited their deposit by failing to secure one-sixth of the vote in their constituencies.[64] Although the party secured 32.9 per cent of the votes in Delhi, it failed to win any seats there.[65]

Immediately after the elections, Shazia Ilmi (a founder and PAC member) resigned from the party, alleging that it was being run by a coterie and lacked internal democracy.[66][67]

The criticism of Kejriwal's style of leadership continued with National Executive member Yogendra Yadav's letter to his party members, in which he claimed the members were "falling prey to a personality cult". He said, "Let me reiterate that Arvind Bhai is no ordinary leader and there are no two opinions about his continuing as the national convener; nor have I ever doubted his status as first among equals within the party's leadership. The real question is whether there are limits to personal discretion of the leader."[68]

After the National Executive meeting on 8 June, the party and Kejriwal acknowledged these differences and announced the launch of "Mission Vistar" (Mission Expand), to include more people in local as well as national decision making.[69]

The Delhi state assembly elections for the Sixth Legislative Assembly of Delhi were held on 7 February 2015, as declared by the Election Commission of India.[70] The Aam Aadmi Party scored a landslide victory by winning a majority of 67 of the 70 seats. The BJP was able to win 3 seats and the Congress party saw all its candidates lose.[71] Kejriwal became the Chief Minister for the second time.[72] The AAP had started campaigning in Delhi in November 2014 and declared candidates for all 70 seats.[73]

During the campaign, Kejriwal generated controversy by asking volunteers to take bribes from other parties while recording the bribe. He claimed that the BJP had been trying to bribe AAP volunteers.[74] The situation caused the Election Commission of India to instruct Kejriwal to desist from breaking laws governing the model code of conduct for elections in India,[75] but the Delhi court then allowed Kejriwal to challenge this.[76]

The President's Rule was subsequently rescinded and Kejriwal became the Chief Minister of Delhi with six cabinet ministers (Manish Sisodia, Asim Ahmed Khan, Sandeep Kumar, Satyendar Jain, Gopal Rai, and Jitender Singh Tomar).[77][78]

Major differences surfaced within the party leadership soon after its victory. It created deep fissures between the founding members who had together championed the India Against Corruption movement. Problems emerged in February 2015 when Yogendra Yadav and Prashanth Bhushan wrote a joint letter to the National Executive, highlighting Kejriwal's tendency to unilateral decision-making, which they alleged had compromised the party's core principle of Swaraj.[79] After continued allegations, counter-allegations and several failed attempts at reconciliation between the two sides, Yadav and Bhushan were first removed from the PAC and later from the National Executive after the party's National Council passed a resolution to expel them for their alleged anti-party activities.[80][81][82] Party leaders refuted accusations made by Yadav and Bhushan at the meeting that the party was murdering democracy and resorting to intimidation.[83][84] In April 2015, Yadav, Bhushan, Anand Kumar, and Ajit Jha were removed from the party.[85]

The AAP contested the 2017 Goa Legislative Assembly election and 2017 Punjab Legislative Assembly election. It lost all the seats and failed to save deposits of 38 out of 39 seats in Goa, on which its candidates contested.[86]

For the 2017 Punjab Legislative Assembly election, the Lok Insaaf Party allied with the Aam Aadmi Party. This alliance was called the AAP Alliance and was represented on news channels as AAP+. It won 22 seats in total, two of which were won by the Lok Insaaf Party and the other twenty by the Aam Aadmi Party.[87]

Unlike the 2014 Indian general election, the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) of the party decided to contest elections on limited seats of some of the states and all the seats in Delhi, Goa,[88] and Punjab.[89] In the state of Haryana, the AAP formed an alliance with Dushyant Chautala's Jannayak Janata Party to contest three Lok Sabha constituencies.[90][91] The PAC also decided to support and campaign for CPI (M) in Kerala.[92] The party also fielded its first transgender candidate from Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh.[93] The AAP lost 39 of the 40 seats it had contested across nine states and UTs.[94] The following is a list of candidates for some of the constituencies:

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia after securing a win in the Delhi Assembly Elections 2020

Voting for the Delhi Assembly elections took place on 8 February 2020, following vehement campaigns run by the major political parties contesting the election.[99] The counting of votes and subsequent announcement of results happened on 11 February.[99]

The Aam Aadmi Party retained the government as the party won 62 out of 70 seats.[100] Arvind Kejriwal became the Chief Minister of Delhi for the third consecutive time. The party's vote share was 53.5%, according to the results.[101]

After coming to power in Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal announced a reduction in electricity bills for up to 400 units, driven by subsidy. He also ordered an audit of power distribution companies. The AAP government also announced that homes with metered connections would receive 20 kilolitres of free water per month, but would have to pay 10% more if they exceeded that limit. The government scrapped the Foreign Direct Investment in multibrand retail. It established an anti-graft helpline for citizens to report corrupt officials.[102]

The government's plan to conduct Janata Durbars (public hearings with ministers) was abandoned due to mismanagement. Vinod Kumar Binny, an AAP Member of the Legislative Assembly, was expelled after rebelling against the party.[102]

On 20 January 2014, Kejriwal and his ministers staged protests at Rail Bhavan against the Union Government Home Ministry. These came after his Law Minister, Somnath Bharti, had been dissatisfied with the response from the Delhi police to allegations relating to a neighborhood popular with immigrants from Uganda and Nigeria. Kejriwal demanded that the police should come under direct control of the Delhi government and that officers who had refused to do as Bharti had requested should be suspended. He said that the protest would not hamper his work as he had brought along files and would carry on working from the venue of the protest.[103] He later claimed that it was the first time in Indian political history that a Chief Minister had protested on the streets to raise his government's demands for a fair inquiry. After two days, he ended his fast when the Lieutenant Governor, Najeeb Jung, intervened by suspending two police officers involved and set up a judicial inquiry.[104][105]

Also in January 2014, the party's office in Ghaziabad was attacked by right-wing activists protesting against Prashant Bhushan, who had expressed a personal opinion against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act in Jammu & Kashmir by mentioning a referendum in that state to decide whether the people wanted the army to handle internal security. This caused the AAP to determine that its prominent members would in future refrain from expressing opinions on anything that was not agreed upon by a broad consensus within the party.[106]

By January 2014, financial support for the party from non-resident Indians had halved during the party's period in government, possibly reflecting disenchantment. The party also admitted that its systems may have significantly overstated members introduced through a nationwide recruitment campaign that was affected by hoaxers.[102]

In February 2014, the AAP tried to introduce a Jan Lokpal Bill in the Delhi Assembly. However, Jung said that the AAP government tabling the bill without his agreement would be "unconstitutional" because the correct procedures for introduction had not been followed. This view was supported by Congress and the BJP, and Jung advised the Assembly Speaker not to allow the tabling.[107] The AAP government stated that it was following all the procedures and there was no need to obtain prior approval from the centre or Lieutenant Governor to table the bill. When the BJP and INC blocked the introduction of the bill, the AAP government resigned and Delhi was placed under President's rule instead.[108] Kejriwal alleged that there was a nexus among Congress, the BJP, and the industrialist Mukesh Ambani, and that the two parties had "ganged up" against the AAP after it filed a First Information Report against Ambani.[109] In March, the party declared that it would seek re-election.[110]

In December 2015, the AAP asked all private schools to make their own criteria for making the admission process transparent by uploading the criteria on the school website. In a follow-up move in early 2016, the AAP government scrapped all admission quotas from private schools except for children from extremely weak socioeconomic backgrounds.[111] In 2015, Advocate Prashant Patel challenged a decision by Arvind Kejriwal, who had appointed 21 AAP MLAs as Parliamentary Secretaries to seven ministries.[112]

In 2016, the AAP government launched a campaign to focus on the reading ability of students after it found that 3.5 lakh students in grades 6–8 could not read. It ran a two-month "crash course", which it claimed led to 1 lakh such students now being able to read their textbooks.[113]

The government also formed a panel to investigate the finances of schools in Delhi. The panel scrutinised a total of 1,108 private unaided schools, and identified some as having overcharged parents on the pretext of implementing recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission.[114] The government ordered these schools to return the excess fee back to the students' parents, failing which it threatened to take over the institutions. The announcement received mixed responses: some perceived it as a justified attack on financial malpractice and unjustified fee hikes,[115] while the Delhi High Court was of the opinion that the government should stop meddling in private school affairs.[116]

In October 2017, the AAP government announced that it would inaugurate over 5,000 new classrooms in more than 100 Delhi government schools.[117]

The government also allocated the highest share of the Delhi state budget towards education for five years in a row.[118]

The AAP government had planned to set up 1,000 Mohalla Clinics by the end of 2017 to provide consultations, medicine, and tests free of cost to patients. In February 2017, it was reported that 110 such clinics were functional and had treated over 8 lakh patients in five months.[119] The program was commended by former UN General Secretary Kofi Annan and former Prime Minister of Norway and Director-General of the World Health Organization, Gro Harlem Brundtland, as an excellent strategy for building a universal healthcare system.[120]

In 2016, former Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Najeeb Jung ordered a committee formed to examine alleged irregularities and cases of nepotism across Delhi State Government departments.[121]

• An Insignificant Man, a 2017 Hindi/English Indian socio-political documentary co-produced and directed by Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla and also co-produced by filmmaker Anand Gandhi.[124][125] The documentary is about the rise of anti-corruption protests in India and the formation and rise to power of the Aam Aadmi Party.[126]