Aam Aadmi Party
Aam Aadmi Party is an Indian political party, formally launched on 26 November 2012, and is currently the ruling party of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. It came into existence following differences between the activists Arvind Kejriwal and Anna Hazare regarding whether or not to politicise the popular India Against Corruption movement that had been demanding a Jan Lokpal Bill since 2011. Hazare preferred that the movement should remain politically unaligned while Kejriwal felt the failure of the agitation route necessitated a direct political involvement.
The party made its electoral debut in the 2013 Delhi Legislative Assembly election, where it emerged as the second-largest party, winning 28 of the 70 seats. With no party obtaining an overall majority, the AAP formed a minority government with conditional support from the Indian National Congress. A significant part of its agenda was to quickly introduce the Jan Lokpal bill in the National Capital Territory of Delhi. When it became clear after the election that the other major parties would not support this bill, the AAP government resigned. It had been in power for 49 days.
In the 2015 Delhi Legislative Assembly election, AAP won 67 of the 70 seats in the assembly. Among two national political parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party won 3 seats, while the Indian National Congress did not win any. In the 2020 Delhi Legislative Assembly election, the Aam Aadmi Party won 62 out of the 70 seats, the Bharatiya Janata Party won 8, while the Indian National Congress once again did not win any seats in the election.
History
India Against Corruption movement
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. 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 and other social networking services had indicated that there was wide support for politicisation. 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.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, 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.
Inception of party
The party's name reflects the phrase Aam Aadmi 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. 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 The party was formally launched in Delhi on 26 November and in March 2013 it was registered as a political party by the Election Commission of India.Initial period
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. Aruna Roy and Medha Patkar, who had differences with Kejriwal on certain issues, supported him after his 15-day fast against inflated electricity bills.On 22 March 2014, the Janata Dal party of Delhi announced it would merge with the Aam Aadmi Party, citing Kejriwal's tenure as Chief Minister of Delhi.
Two of the founders of the party, Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav, left Aam Aadmi Party and formed Swaraj Abhiyan.
Ideology and issues
At the time of formation, the AAP said that the promise of equality and justice that forms a part of the Constitution of India and of its preamble has not been fulfilled and that the Independence of India has replaced enslavement to an oppressive foreign power with that to a political elite. It claimed that the common people of India remain unheard and unseen except when it suits the politicians. It wants to reverse the way that the accountability of government operates and has taken an interpretation of the Gandhian concept of swaraj as a tenet. It believes that through swaraj the government will be directly accountable to the people instead of higher officials. The swaraj model lays stress on self-governance, community building and decentralization.Kejriwal has said that the AAP refuses to be guided by ideologies and that they are entering politics to change the system, Kejriwal said "We are aam aadmis. If we find our solution in the left we are happy to borrow it from there. If we find our solution in the right, we are happy to borrow it from there."
In early 2014, there was some media speculation that an alliance might form between the AAP and Communist Party of India. Prakash Karat, the CPI leader, thought that there were some ideological similarities between the two parties, such as their agendas relating to social justice and decentralisation of power. The AAP's Prashant Bhushan explicitly refuted any joining of forces, claiming that there was corruption within the CPIM. A columnist, T. C. A. Srinivasa Raghavan, said that the AAP was right-wing when it came to morality and left-wing when it came to economics. However, the party advocates scrapping Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code and legalizing both homosexuality and same-sex marriage. The party is also regarded as being populist and to the left of the Indian National Congress economically.
National Convener
List of Chief Ministers
Chief Ministers of Delhi
Deputy Chief Ministers of Delhi
Funding
On 26 November 2012, the formal launch day of the AAP, the former law minister, Shanti Bhushan, donated. Prashant Bhushan, his son, was a member of the party's National Executive Committee. The party raised by November 2013. The party received in 2015 assembly polls.The party started with a claim of being transparent in its funding. However, it had failed to disclose the details of the same on its website as promised earlier. The action of party to remove details of funding was questioned by Yogendra Yadav and Anna Hazare in 2016.
Protests
On 23 March 2013, Kejriwal began an indefinite fast in an attempt to mobilise people against inflated power and electricity bills at a house in Sundar Nagri, a low-income group resettlement colony in North-East Delhi. During the protest he urged Delhi citizens not to pay the "inflated" water and electricity bills. The AAP also demanded an audit of power and electricity supply in Delhi by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India also supported by Civil Society Groups like National Alliance of People's Movement. The AAP claimed that the protest gathered support from people in Delhi on a single day and from more than people up to 28 March 2013. Anna Hazare urged Kejriwal to end the fast on 29 March and he did so on 6 April.On 10 June 2013, Kejriwal supported the agitation by Delhi auto-rickshaw drivers, who were protesting the Delhi government's ban on advertisements on auto-rickshaws. Kejriwal claimed the government's ban was because the drivers supported his party and carried AAP's advertisements on their vehicles. He said that the AAP would put 10,000 advertisements on auto-rickshaws as a protest. In retrospect, after Kejriwal had been elected and then resigned his position, a union representing the drivers expressed dissatisfaction saying "Arvind Kejriwal, who had won the elections because of the support of the auto drivers, has betrayed them by not fulfilling any of the promises made before the elections".
On 22 April 2015, AAP organised a rally in Delhi against a land acquisition bill.
Elections
Delhi Assembly election, 2013
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. The party said that its candidates were honest and had been screened for potential criminal backgrounds. The AAP published its central manifesto on 20 November 2013, promising to implement the Jan Lokpal Bill within 15 days of coming to power.In November 2013, a sting operation conducted by Media Sarkar, alleged that several leaders of 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 AAP. 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. The Election Commission ordered an inquiry regarding the legitimacy of the video.
AAP emerged as the second-largest party in Delhi winning 28 of the 70 Assembly seats; the Bharatiya Janata Party as the single-largest party won 31 while its ally Shiromani Akali Dal won 1, Indian National Congress won 8 and two were won by others. 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. Kejriwal became the second-youngest Chief Minister of Delhi. As a result of the Delhi elections, AAP became a recognised state party in Delhi.
General election, 2014
The party 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. The outcome was that 4 AAP candidates won, all from Punjab. Consequently, AAP became a recognised state party in Punjab. 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. Although the party secured 32.9 per cent of the votes in Delhi, it failed to win any seats there.Immediately after elections, Shazia Ilmi resigned from party, alleging that the party was being run by a coterie and lacked internal democracy.
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 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."
After the National Executive meeting on 8 June, the party and Kejriwal acknowledged these differences and announced the launch of "Mission Vistar" to include more people in local as well as national decision making.
Delhi Assembly election, 2015
The Delhi state assembly elections for the Sixth Legislative Assembly of Delhi were held on 7 February 2015 as declared by Election Commission of India. 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. Kejriwal became the Chief Minister for the second time. AAP had started campaigning in Delhi right from November 2014 and declared candidates for all 70 seats.During the campaign, Kejriwal's statement of "Paise lekar sting kar lo" created 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. The situation caused the Election Commission of India to instruct Kejriwal to desist from breaking the laws governing the model code of conduct for elections in India but the Delhi court then allowed Kejriwal to challenge this.
President's Rule was subsequently rescinded and Kejriwal became the Chief Minister of Delhi with six Cabinet Ministers.
Major differences surfaced within the party leadership soon after the party's victory. It created deep fissures between the founding members who had together championed the India Against Corruption movement. The 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. After continued allegations, counter-allegations and several failed attempts of reconciliation between the two sides, Yadav and Bhushan were first removed from 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. Party leaders refuted accusations made by Yadav and Bhushan at the meeting that party was murdering democracy and resorting to intimidation. In April 2015, Yadav, Bhushan, Anand Kumar and Ajit Jha were removed from the party.
Assembly elections 2017
The party contested in 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.For 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, 2 of which were won by the Lok Insaaf Party and the other 20 by the Aam Aadmi Party.
General election, 2019
Unlike 2014 Indian general election, the Political Affairs Committee of the Party decided to contest elections on limited seats of some of the states and on all of the seats of Delhi, Goa and Punjab. In the state of Haryana, the party formed an alliance with Dushyant Chautala's Jannayak Janata Party to contest on 3 Lok Sabha constituencies. PAC also decided to support and campaign for CPI in Kerala. The party also fielded its first transgender candidate from Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh. AAP lost 39 seats of the 40 it had contested from across nine states and UTs. Following are the list of candidates for some of the constituencies:| State/UT | Constituency | Candidates | Result |
| Bihar | Kishanganj #10 | Alimuddin Ansari | Lost |
| Bihar | Sitamarhi #5 | Raghunath Kumar | Lost |
| Bihar | Bhagalpur #26 | Satyendra Kumar | Lost |
| Chandigarh | Chandigarh #1 | Harmohan Dhawan | Lost |
| Delhi | Chandni Chowk #1 | Pankaj Gupta | Lost |
| Delhi | North East Delhi #2 | Dilip Pandey | Lost |
| Delhi | East Delhi #3 | Atishi Marlena | Lost |
| Delhi | New Delhi #4 | Brijesh Goyal | Lost |
| Delhi | North West Delhi #5 | Gugan Singh | Lost |
| Delhi | West Delhi #6 | Balbir Singh Jakhar | Lost |
| Delhi | South Delhi #7 | Raghav Chadha | Lost |
| Haryana | Ambala #1 | Prithvi Raj | Lost |
| Haryana | Karnal #5 | Krishan Kumar Agarwal | Lost |
| Haryana | Faridabad #10 | Naveen Jaihind | Lost |
| Goa | North Goa #1 | Pradeep Padgaonkar | Lost |
| Goa | South Goa #2 | Elvis Gomes | Lost |
| Punjab | Gurdaspur #1 | Peter Masih | Lost |
| Punjab | Amritsar #2 | Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal | Lost |
| Punjab | Khadoor Sahib #3 | Manjinder Singh Sidhu | Lost |
| Punjab | Jalandhar #4 | Jora Singh | Lost |
| Punjab | Hoshiarpur #5 | Dr Ravjot Singh | Lost |
| Punjab | Anandpur Sahib #6 | Narinder Singh Shergill | Lost |
| Punjab | Ludhiana #7 | Tejpal Singh | Lost |
| Punjab | Fatehgarh Sahib #8 | Baljinder Singh Chonda | Lost |
| Punjab | Faridkot #9 | Sadhu Singh | Lost |
| Punjab | Firozpur #10 | Harjinder Singh Kaka | Lost |
| Punjab | Bathinda #11 | Baljinder Kaur | Lost |
| Punjab | Sangrur #12 | Bhagwant Mann | Won |
| Punjab | Patiala #13 | Nina Mittal | Lost |
| Uttar Pradesh | Saharanpur #1 | Yogesh Dahiya | Lost |
| Uttar Pradesh | Gautam Buddh Nagar #13 | Shweta Sharma | Lost |
| Uttar Pradesh | Aligarh #15 | Satish Chandra Sharma | Lost |
| Uttar Pradesh | Allahabad #52 | Bhawani Nath Valmiki | Lost |
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Electoral results
General Elections
State Assembly Elections
Current leaders in Houses
Government of Delhi
2013–2014
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 the homes with metered connections would receive 20 kilolitres of free bwater per month, but will have to pay 10% more if they exceed that limit. The government scrapped Foreign Direct Investment in multi-brand retail. It established an anti-graft helpline for the citizens to report corrupt officials.The government's plan to conduct Janata Durbars was abandoned due to mismanagement. Vinod Kumar Binny, an AAP Member of the Legislative Assembly was expelled after rebelling against the party.
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 was demanding 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 will not hamper his work as he had brought along files and would carry on working from the venue of the protest. 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 suspended two policemen involved and set up a judicial inquiry.
Also in January 2014, the party's office in Ghaziabad was attacked by right-wing activists protesting against Prashant Bhushan, who has expressed a personal opinion against the Armed Forces Act in Jammu & Kashmir by talking of a referendum in that state to decide whether the people want 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 by a broad consensus within the party.
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.
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. 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 and tried 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. Kejriwal alleged that there was a nexus among Congress, the BJP and the industrialist Mukesh Ambani, and the two parties had "ganged up" against AAP after it filed a First Information Report against Ambani. In March, the party declared that it would seek re-election.
2015–present
Education
In December 2015, had 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 belonging to extremely weak socioeconomic backgrounds.In 2016, the AAP Government then launched a campaign to focus on the reading ability of students after it found out that 3.5 lakh students in class 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.
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.
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 while the Delhi High Court has been of the opinion that the Government should stop meddling in private school affairs.
In October 2017, the AAP government announced that it will inaugurate over 5,000 new classrooms in more than 100 Delhi government schools.
The AAP government has allocated the highest share of the Delhi state budget towards education for five years in a row.
Health
The AAP government had planned to set up 1,000 Mohalla Clinics by the end of 2017 to provide consultation, medicines and tests free of cost to patients. In February 2017, it was reported that 110 such clinics were functional which had treated over 8 lakh patients in five months. The program was commended by the 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 to building a universal health care system.Shunglu Committee
The erstwhile Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Najeeb Jung ordered a committee to formed to examine the alleged irregularities and cases of nepotism across the Delhi State Government departments.Published accounts
Documentary
- 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. The documentary is about the rise of anti-corruption protests in India and the formation and rise to power of the Aam Aadmi Party.
Coalition with others
Party supported Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal in 2015 Bihar Legislative Assembly election against the Bharatiya Janata Party.
In 2017 Punjab assembly election party formed coalition with Lok Insaaf Party and gave 5 seats to it. However, in March 2018 due to some differences with party Lok Insaaf Party broke coalition.
For 2019 Indian general election party declared to make coalition with Jannayak Janata Party in Haryana. JJP contested on 7 out of 10 seats and AAP on rest of the 3 seats. But failed to win any seat.