That Was The Week That Was: Delhi Election 2015 Edition

The events of the past week have been overwhelming. Pardon me for I have just been able to compose myself to get my metaphorical pen on paper.

If I thought my job was done with the manifesto and white papers for the Aam Aadmi Party, I was mistaken. I had the tiresome pleasure of managing the emergency helpline for 60 hours non-stop till 6 pm on 7th February 2015 where we fire fought across the city in an attempt to stop the distribution of alcohol and money; promotion of violence and illicit means to swing votes away from us from Badarpur to Badli, from Babarpur to Bawana. We sat in anticipation for the verdict that the citizens of Delhi would deliver to us, which could sound the war conch for positive politics or the death knell to the first true political alternative.

And then, the magic happened. The political party that won a clear majority at the Center under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah had been rejected and held back by a diminutive ragtag force of volunteers from every class, caste, religion, gender and region of the world. And how! 67 seats in the legislative assembly out of 70! It was an unprecedented victory, broke the record books of Indian electoral politics and left me stunned. Even the most conservative Fermi guesstimate would have pegged the number of hugs and screams I let out on 10th February 2015 at a few thousand.

I had returned to New Delhi after a few years of graduate school at Stanford to work for a political party that was at its nadir and a leader whose life, work, integrity and strategy at being the first true viable alternative in Indian politics was being questioned and ridiculed. June 2014, the month that I joined AAP, was not the best time to openly declare yourself as an Arvind Kejriwal fanboy or fight for the Aam Aadmi Party or as it was known in AAP-bashing circles: “The Socialist Naxalite Communist Marxist Leninist Sexist Racist Aam Aadmi Party.” And yet every bone, muscle and tendon in my body wanted to do it. And I did.

While some courteous and kind friends and relatives applauded my decision as fearless and respectable, I knew that a majority thought me to fit to be checked into a mental hospital, assumed I had received poor grades and/or had a criminal history that I wanted to hide from the United States. I chuckled and moved on. I was ready to slum it out for the ideals of the man I respected and fight for the moral ethos and genuine alternative that the Aam Aadmi Party espoused even if it meant fighting with just a few MLAs that the Modi Wave would have left us in Delhi. I had returned to work with a handful of MLAs and now we have a government and 67! I was simply astonished. Hyperboles also known as Ravi Shastri similes, for the first time, weren’t enough.

My personal journey within the party has made me meet some of the best humans and selfless individuals I’ve met till date on whom books should and will be written and grown my skills in media management/briefing, policy research, manifesto writing, data analytics, psephology, and most importantly getting a better understanding of the problems and solutions of the city I call home. Somehow through a series of fortunate events that included positive politics, coherent campaigns, mindful media management and kudrati karishmas, we ended up winning the first battle of Delhi through the Aam Aadmi Tsunami.

And yet it hadn’t sunk in. The victory was full of joy and laughter and incredulous looks and screams and more of all of that on loop every hour everyday. But there was some emotion that was missing. Something that hadn’t been triggered.

And then, 14th February 2015 happened. The Aam Aadmi Party government, nah, the Aam Aadmi was sworn in to power with Arvind Kejriwal as its Chief Minister. 100,000 people were in attendance with millions more in their homes and in front of their TV screens. And then Arvind Kejriwal came and said:

“Main Arvind Kejriwal Ishwar ki Shapath Leta Hoon”

And the floodgates opened. I wept profusely for the first time in years in what can only be described as a potpourri of emotions. I was hugged and consoled and loved by the many selfless souls I mentioned above with jokes and by revisiting funny moments of the campaign. And then I slipped away to the side and wept silently for some more. For all their jokes, even my most cheerful colleagues had a tear on their eyelids. For months, an Aam Army had fought with a singularity of purpose and that had happened. Unbelievable. For a love story that had gone astray on 14th February 2014, Delhi received its most beautiful makeup/reunion on the Valentine’s Day gift on 14th February 2015.

The impossible had happened. And there is a lot more impossible yet to do. My childhood dream of bringing Anil Kapoor’s Nayak to life from SET Max has gotten a start in my lifetime. The second half i.e. Office begins tomorrow. To those of you still reading through this stream of consciousness, I thank you once again for entrusting the reins of governance in Delhi to us at the Aam Aadmi Party. We are incredibly humbled and almost scared by the immense responsibility that you have placed on our shoulders. However, you are also our source of strength and we are confident that, along with your continued support and blessings, we will make Delhi the corruption-free world class city that you will be proud of.

Godspeed You! Aam Aadmi 🙂

Photo: No weeping pictures here. I share a picture from a happier moment on 10th February 2015. That moment when even CNN-IBN, Zee News, India TV had called my boss, Arvind Kejriwal, the Chief Minister of Delhi. He hugged me and said “Ab yeh jo Manifesto likha hai, usey karna bhi padega”! 🙂