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95. Arvind Kejriwal Life
History
From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia
Arvind Kejriwal
Assumed office
Deputy
Preceded by
In office
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Member of the Delhi
Legislative Assemblyfor New Delhi
Incumbent
Assumed office
Preceded by
Born
Nationality
Political party
Spouse(s)
Children
Residence
Profession
Activist, Politician
Awards
Arvind Kejriwal (born 16
August 1968) is an Indian politician who is
the Chief Minister of Delhi since February 2015.
He previously served as Chief Minister from
December 2013 to February 2014, stepping down
after 49 days. He is the national convener of
the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). His party won
the 2015 Delhi Assembly elections with a
majority, obtaining 67 out of 70 assembly seats.
Kejriwal is a mechanical
engineering graduate of the Indian Institute of
Technology Kharagpur, and worked for the Indian
Revenue Service (IRS) as ajoint commissioner in
the Income Tax Department.[3][4]
In 2006, Kejriwal was
awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent
Leadership recognising his involvement in the
grassroots
movement Parivartan 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 (NGO).
In 2012, he launched the
Aam Aadmi Party, and the party won 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 minority
government's inability to pass his proposed
anti-corruption legislation due to a lack of
support from other political parties.[5][6]
On 14 February 2015, he was
sworn in as Chief Minister for a second term
after his party's victory in the Delhi
Assembly election.[7][8]
Contents
o
4.1Parivartan and Kabir o
4.2Public Cause Research Foundation o
4.3Jan Lokpal movement o
4.4Return of the Anti-corruption Branch ·
5Political career o
5.1Establishment of AAP o
5.2Chief Minister of Delhi (first term) o
5.32014 National Elections o
5.4Chief Minister of Delhi (second term) ·
6Legal Affairs ·
7Awards and recognitions ·
8Books ·
9See also ·
10References ·
11External links
Early life[edit]
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 Devi. 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[9] and at
a Christian missionary school at Sonipat.[10]
Kejriwal's grandfather was
pleased when he considered training for a
medical career but Kejriwal eventually opted to
study engineering because there were far more
student places available.[citation needed] He
graduated from the Indian Institute of
Technology in Kharagpur, majoring in mechanical
engineering. He joined Tata Steelin 1989 and was
posted in Jamshedpur. Kejriwal resigned in 1992,
having taken leave of absence to study for
the Civil Services Examination.[9] He spent some
time in Kolkata, where he met Mother Teresa, and
volunteered with The Missionaries of Charity and
at the Ramakrishna Mission in North-East
India and at Nehru Yuva Kendra.[11]
Personal life[edit]
In 1995, Arvind Kejriwal
married 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
theVipassana meditation technique for many
years.[9] He is diabetic.[12]
Career in IRS[edit]
Kejriwal joined the IRS as
an Assistant Commissioner of Income Tax in 1995
after qualifying through the Civil Services
Examination.[13] In November 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
November 2002. According to Kejriwal, he was not
given any posting for almost a year, and kept
getting his salary without doing any work; so,
after 18 months, he applied for leave without
pay.[14] For the next 18 months, Kejriwal was on
sanctioned unpaid leave.[15] In February 2006,
he resigned from his position as a Joint
Commissioner of Income Tax in New
Delhi.[13] TheGovernment 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 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.[15] Kejriwal paid ₹ 927,787 as dues, but stated that this should not be considered as an
admission of fault.[14]
Anti-corruption
activism[edit]
Parivartan and Kabir[edit]
Main article: Parivartan
In December 1999, while
still in service with the Income Tax Department,
Kejriwal,Manish Sisodia and others found a
movement named Parivartan (which means
"change"), in the Sundar Nagari area of Delhi. A
month later, in January 2000, Kejriwal took a
sabbatical from work to focus on
Parivartan.[16][17]
Parivartan addressed
citizens' grievances related to Public
Distribution System(PDS), public works, social
welfare schemes, income tax and electricity. It
was not a registered NGO - it ran on individual
donations, and was characterised as a jan
andolan ("people's movement") by its
members.[18] Later, in 2005, Kejriwal and Manish
Sisodia launched Kabir, a registered NGO named
after the medieval philosopher Kabir. Like
Parivartan, Kabir was also focused on RTI and
participatory governance. However, unlike
Parivartan, it accepted institutional donations.
According to Kejriwal, Kabir was mainly run by
Sisodia.[19]
In 2000, Parivartan filed
a public interest litigation (PIL) demanding
transparency in public dealings of the Income
Tax department, and also organised
a satyagrahaoutside the Chief Commissioner's
office.[20] Kejriwal and other activists also
stationed themselves outside the electricity
department, asking visitors not to pay bribes
and offered to help them in getting work done
for free.[21]
In 2001, the Delhi
government enacted a state-level Right To
Information (RTI) Act, which allowed the
citizens to access government records for a
small fee. Parivartan used RTI to help people
get their work done in government departments
without paying a bribe. In 2002, the group
obtained official reports on 68 public works
projects in the area, and performed a
community-led audit to expose misappropriations
worth ₹ 7 million in 64 of the projects.[17] On 14 December 2002, Parivartan
organised a jan sunvai (public hearing),
in which the citizens held public officials and
leaders accountable for the lack of development
in their locality.[22]
In 2003 (and again in
2008[23]), Parivartan exposed a PDS scam, in
which ration shop dealers were siphoning off
subsidised foodgrains in collusion with civic
officials. In 2004, Parivartan used RTI
applications to access communication between
government agencies and the World Bank,
regarding a project for privatisation of water
supply. Kejriwal and other activists questioned
the huge expenditure on the project, and argued
that it would hike water tariffs ten-fold, thus
effectively cutting off the water supply to the
city's poor. The project was stalled as a result
of Parivartan's activism. Another campaign by
Parivartan led to a court order that required
private schools, which had received public land
at discounted prices, to admit more than 700
poor kids without fee.[20][21]
Along with other social
activists like Anna Hazare, Aruna
Roy and Shekhar Singh, Kejriwal came to be
recognised as an important contributor to the
campaign for a national-level Right to
Information Act (enacted in 2005).[20] He
resigned from his job in February 2006, and
later that year, he was given the Ramon
Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, for his
involvement with Parivartan. The award
recognised him for activating the RTI movement
at the grassroots, and empowering New Delhi's
poor citizens to fight corruption.[21]
By 2012, Parivartan was
largely inactive. Sundar Nagri, where the
movement was concentrated, suffered from
irregular water supply, unreliable PDS system
and poorly done public works.[18] Calling it
"ephemeral and delusionary in nature", Kejriwal
noted that Parivartan's success was limited, and
the changes brought by it did not last long.[24]
Public Cause Research
Foundation[edit]
In December 2006, Kejriwal
established the Public Cause Research Foundation
in December 2006, together with Manish
Sisodia and Abhinandan Sekhri. He donated his
Ramon Magsaysay Award prize money as a seed
fund. Besides the three founders, Prashant
Bhushan and Kiran Bedi served as the
Foundation's trustees.[25]This new body paid the
employees of Parivartan.[18] Kejriwal used the
RTI 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.[11]
Jan Lokpal movement[edit]
Main article: 2011 Indian
anti-corruption movement
In 2010, Kejriwal protested
against corruption in the Commonwealth Games. He
argued that the Central Vigilance Commission
(CVC) did not have any powers to take any action
against the guilty, while CBI was incapable of
launching an unbiased investigation against the
ministers who controlled it. He advocated
appointment of public ombudsman - Lokpal at the
Centre and Lokayuktas in states.[26]
In 2011, Kejriwal joined
several other activists, including Anna
Hazare and Kiran Bedi, to form the India Against
Corruption (IAC) group. The IAC demanded
enactment of the Jan Lokpal Bill, which would
result in a strong ombudsman. The campaign
evolved into the 2011 Indian anti-corruption
movement. In response to the campaign, the
government's advisory body - the National
Advisory Council - drafted a Lokpal Bill.
However, the NAC's Bill was criticised by
Kejriwal and other activists on the grounds that
it did not have enough powers to take action
against the prime minister, other corrupt
officeholders and the judiciary. The activists
also criticised the procedure for selection of
Lokpal, the transparency clauses and the
proposal to disallow the Lokpal from taking
cognisance of public grievances.[27]
Amid continuing protests,
the Government constituted a committee to Draft
a Jan Lokpal Bill. Kejriwal was one of the civil
society representative members of this
committee. However, he alleged that the IAC
activists had an unequal position in the
committee, and the government appointees kept
ignoring their recommendations. The Government
argued that the activists could not be allowed
to blackmail the elected representatives through
protests. Kejriwal retorted that democratically
elected representatives could not be allowed to
function like dictators, and asked for a public
debate on the contentious issues.[28]
The IAC activists
intensified their protests, and Anna
Hazare organised a hunger strike. Kejriwal and
other activists were arrested for defying a
police directive to give a written undertaking
that they will not go to JP Park. Kejriwal
attacked the government on this and said there
was a need for a debate over police power to
detain and release people at will.[29][30] In
August 2011, a settlement was reached between
the Government and the activists.[31]
Besides the government, the
Jan Lokpal movement was also criticised by some
citizens as 'undemocratic' on the grounds that
the ombudsman had powers over elected
representatives. Arundhati Roy claimed that the
movement was not a people's movement; instead,
it was funded by foreigners to influence policy
making in India. She pointed out that the Ford
Foundation had funded the Emergent Leadership
category of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, and also
donated $397,000 to Kejriwal's NGO
Kabir.[32] Both Kejriwal and Ford Foundation
termed the allegations as baseless, stating that
the donations were made to support the RTI
campaigns. Besides, several other Indian
organisations had also received grants from the
Ford Foundation.[33][34] Kejriwal also denied
the allegations that the movement was a plot
against the ruling Congress by the RSS, or that
it was an upper-caste conspiracy against
the Dalits.[19]
By January 2012, the
Government had backtracked on its promise to
implement a strong Jan Lokpal, resulting in
another series of protests from Kejriwal and his
fellow activists. These protests attracted lower
participation compared to the 2011
protests.[35] By mid-2012, Kejriwal had replaced
Anna Hazare as the face of the remaining
protestors.[36]
In 2015 during the second
term of AAP government in Delhi the Jan Lokpal
Bill was passed by the assembly awaiting
presidents approval [37]
Return of the
Anti-corruption Branch[edit]
In march 2016 Kejriwal
announced to the Delhi Assembly the return of
the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) a government
branch that was taken away by the previous
government and was dedicated to fight corruption
in the administration.[38]
Political career[edit]
Establishment of AAP[edit]
One of the major criticisms
directed at the Jan Lokpal activists was that
they had no right to dictate terms to the
elected representatives. As a result, Kejriwal
and other activists decided to enter politics
and contest elections.[39] In November 2012,
they formally launched the Aam Aadmi Party;
Kejriwal was elected as the party's National
Convener. The party name reflects the phrase Aam
Aadmi, or "common man", whose interests Kejriwal
proposed to represent.[40] The establishment of
AAP caused a rift between Kejriwal and
Hazare.[41]
AAP decided to contest
the Delhi Legislative Assembly election, 2013,
with Kejriwal contesting against the incumbent
Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit. Kejriwal became
the fifth most-mentioned Indian politician on
social media channels in the run-up to the
elections.[42]
Chief Minister of Delhi
(first term)[edit]
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.[43] Kejriwal
defeated incumbent Chief Minister, Sheila
Dikshit of the Indian National Congress(INC), in
her constituency of New Delhi[44] by a margin of
25,864 votes.[45]
AAP formed a minority
government in the hung assembly, (claiming
support for the action gauged from opinion
polls) with outside support from the eight INC
MLAs, one Janata Dal MLA and one independent
MLA.[46][47] 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.[48][49] He was in charge of Delhi's home,
power, planning, finance, services and vigilance
ministries.[50]
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.[51] 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 (FIR) against industrialist Mukesh
Ambani, chairman and managing director
of Reliance Industries.[52] In April 2014 he
said that he had made a mistake by resigning
without publicly explaining the rationale behind
his decision.[53]
2014 National
Elections[edit]
Kejriwal said in January,
prior to his resignation as chief minister, that
he would not contest a seat in the 2014 Lok
Sabha elections.[54] Party members persuaded him
to change his mind,[55] and on 25 March, he
agreed to contest against the BJP prime
ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi,
fromVaranasi.[56][57] He lost the contest[58] by
a margin of around 370,000 votes.[59]
Chief Minister of Delhi
(second term)[edit]
Kejriwal led AAP to win 67
of the 70 constituencies in the 2015 Delhi
Assembly elections, leaving the BJP with three
seats and the INC with none.[60] In those
elections, he was again elected from the New
Delhi constituency, defeating Nupur Sharma by
31,583 votes.[61] He took oath on 14 February
2015 as Delhi's chief minister for a second time
at Ramlila Maidan.[62] Since then his party has
passed the Jan Lokpal Bill though with some
differences [63][64]
Legal Affairs[edit]
On 2 March 2016, Delhi High
Court asked Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and
suspended BJP MP Kirti Azad to file their
written statements in a civil defamation suit of
Rs 5 crore filed by DDCA for their alleged
remarks against the cricket body regarding its
functioning and finances.[65] As of March, 2016
Kejriwal has 6 active defamation cases against
him in addition to 3 still in application
phase.[66] Kejriwal also in his own affidavit to
Election Directorate before the second term
elections in 2015 declared that he has 10
criminal charges and 47 total charges against
him[67] |