Kejriwal: India's anti-graft crusader turned politician

Google – AFP, Adam Plowright (AFP), 8 December 2013

Arvind Kejriwal (left) waves to supporters from his office after winning the state

 assembly election against Sheila Dikshit in New Delhi on December 8, 2013

(AFP, Sajjad Hussain)

New Delhi — Arvind Kejriwal, whose anti-corruption party made a stunning breakthrough in New Delhi's state election, is a former tax inspector with a record of campaigning for transparency in India's notoriously dirty politics.

The 44-year-old quit his comfortable and highly sought-after government job in 2001 and embarked on a career as an anti-corruption campaigner that would lead to national fame.

"I am absolutely confident that finally the country will win, the people will win and democracy will win," he said Sunday after unseating Delhi's long-time Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit in the election.

Arvind Kejriwal (rear centre) takes part in

 a campaign rally in New Delhi on Nov.

12, 2013 (AFP, Manan Vatsyayana)

According to electoral commission forecasts, his Aam Aadmi party was set to capture 27 seats overall in New Delhi's state assembly, pushing the ruling Congress party into third place.

After initially starting an NGO to help voters avail themselves of public services, Kejriwal switched his attention to promoting a Right to Information law which was finally passed in 2005.

His work on the legislation, a success story in opening up the government and a tool used by campaigners to expose corruption and collusion, earned him "Asia's Nobel", the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

In 2010 he began working on ways to pressure the government into passing a law to create an independent ombudsman capable of investigating complaints against public servants.

Joining with elderly activist Anna Hazare, a follower of independence hero Mahatma Gandhi, they launched a nationwide campaign that culminated in hunger strikes by Hazare in front of huge crowds in New Delhi in 2011.

The movement tapped into deep-seated anger about graft amid a succession of scandals involving the national government, catapulting Kejriwal into a national figure.

Relations between the two men ultimately soured and their demands went unheeded, leading Kejriwal to announce his Aam Aadmi ("Common People") Party less than a year ago.

"We were forced into politics because there was an anti-corruption movement in the country and the government promised a strong anti-corruption law, but it went back on its word," he told AFP in an interview last month.

The bookish father-of-two has refused to travel with security -- a status symbol in the capital -- and is regularly stopped by passers-by who recognise him in his trademark white Gandhi cap.

Arvind Kejriwal addresses a

rally after launching the Aam

Aadmi Party (Common man

party) in New Delhi on Nov. 

26, 2012 (AFP, Prakash Singh)

The cap connects Kejriwal to the father of the nation and an era "when we had a politics of honesty and a politics of public service", he told AFP. His party's symbol of a broom symbolises a clean sweep of politics.

Though he admits that scaling up his party will be a challenge before national elections next year, the ambitious son of an electrical engineer clearly has his eyes set on the biggest stage.

"I don't think the problems of this country are such that you don't have solutions or that it's rocket science to solve these problems," he told AFP.

"The question is 'do you have the intention to solve the problems? Those intentions are missing in the government of today.

"If honest people enter the government they will have the good intentions to implement it. The solutions are already known," he added.

Denying his was a single-issue party focused on corruption, he said that even if this was true, better administration through clean government would transform the lives of Indians.

"If corruption can be fixed, then we will started having good roads, good electricity, good education, good health. Most of those things are not working because of corruption," he said.