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==Early life==
==Early life==


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 Devii. 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, Uttar Pradesh|Ghaziabad]] and [[Hisar (city)|Hisar]]. He was educated at [[Campus School CCS HAU, Hisar|Campus School]] in Hisar<ref name="rmaf">{{cite web|title=Ramon Magsaysay Award to Activist Arvind Kejriwal|url=http://www.rmaf.org.ph/newrmaf/main/awardees/awardee/biography/141|publisher=Ramon Magsaysay Foundation}}</ref> and at a Christian missionary school at [[Sonipat]].<ref name=caravan>{{cite news|last=Jeelani|first=Mehboob|title=The Insurgent|url=http://www.caravanmagazine.in/reportage/insurgent|accessdate=2014-04-10|newspaper=The Caravan|date=1 September 2011}}</ref>
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 Devii. He is a [[Baniya]] or [[Vaishya]].<ref>{{cite news
|url=http://indianexpress.com/article/india/politics/kejriwal-makes-common-cause-with-traders-im-baniya-too/
|title=Kejriwal makes common cause with traders: I’m Baniya too
|date=March 29, 2014
|work=Indian Express
}}</ref> 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, Uttar Pradesh|Ghaziabad]] and [[Hisar (city)|Hisar]]. He was educated at [[Campus School CCS HAU, Hisar|Campus School]] in Hisar<ref name="rmaf">{{cite web|title=Ramon Magsaysay Award to Activist Arvind Kejriwal|url=http://www.rmaf.org.ph/newrmaf/main/awardees/awardee/biography/141|publisher=Ramon Magsaysay Foundation}}</ref> and at a Christian missionary school at [[Sonipat]].<ref name=caravan>{{cite news|last=Jeelani|first=Mehboob|title=The Insurgent|url=http://www.caravanmagazine.in/reportage/insurgent|accessdate=2014-04-10|newspaper=The Caravan|date=1 September 2011}}</ref>


Kejriwal graduated from the [[Indian Institute of Technology]] in [[Kharagpur]], majoring in mechanical engineering. He joined [[Tata Steel]] in 1989 and was posted in [[Jamshedpur]]. Kejriwal resigned in 1992, having taken leave of absence to study for the [[Civil Services Examination]].<ref name="rmaf" /> Kejriwal spent some time in [[Kolkata]], at the [[Ramakrishna Mission]] in [[North-East India]] and at Nehru Yuva Kendra.<ref name="ashoka">{{cite web |url= http://india.ashoka.org/fellow/arvind-kejriwal|title=Arvind Kejriwal |publisher=Ashoka |year=2004|accessdate=2013-09-24 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130928232958/http://india.ashoka.org/fellow/arvind-kejriwal |archivedate=28 September 2013}}</ref>
Kejriwal graduated from the [[Indian Institute of Technology]] in [[Kharagpur]], majoring in mechanical engineering. He joined [[Tata Steel]] in 1989 and was posted in [[Jamshedpur]]. Kejriwal resigned in 1992, having taken leave of absence to study for the [[Civil Services Examination]].<ref name="rmaf" /> Kejriwal spent some time in [[Kolkata]], at the [[Ramakrishna Mission]] in [[North-East India]] and at Nehru Yuva Kendra.<ref name="ashoka">{{cite web |url= http://india.ashoka.org/fellow/arvind-kejriwal|title=Arvind Kejriwal |publisher=Ashoka |year=2004|accessdate=2013-09-24 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130928232958/http://india.ashoka.org/fellow/arvind-kejriwal |archivedate=28 September 2013}}</ref>

Revision as of 16:47, 2 August 2014

Arvind Kejriwal
File:ArvindKejriwal2.jpg
7th Chief Minister of Delhi
In office
28 December 2013 – 14 February 2014
Preceded bySheila Dikshit
Succeeded byPresident's Rule
Personal details
Born (1968-08-16) 16 August 1968 (age 56)
Siwani, Haryana
Political partyAam Aadmi Party
SpouseSunita Kejriwal
Children2
Residence(s)Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
EducationBTech in Mechanical Engineering
Alma materIIT Kharagpur
AwardsRamon Magsaysay Award

Arvind Kejriwal (born 16 August 1968) is an Indian politician and former civil servant who served as the 7th Chief Minister of Delhi from 28 December 2013 to 14 February 2014. He is the leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Kejriwal is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur and worked for the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) as a Joint Commissioner in the Income Tax Department.

In 2006, Kejriwal was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership recognising his involvement in a 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 defeated Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit 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 government's inability to pass his proposed anti-corruption legislation due to a lack of support from other political parties.[1][2]

Early life

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 Devii. He is a Baniya or Vaishya.[3] 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[4] and at a Christian missionary school at Sonipat.[5]

Kejriwal graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, majoring in mechanical engineering. He joined Tata Steel in 1989 and was posted in Jamshedpur. Kejriwal resigned in 1992, having taken leave of absence to study for the Civil Services Examination.[4] Kejriwal spent some time in Kolkata, at the Ramakrishna Mission in North-East India and at Nehru Yuva Kendra.[6]

Early career

Kejriwal joined the IRS in 1995 after qualifying through the Civil Services Examination.[7] In 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 2003 and worked for 18 months before taking unpaid leave for 18 months.[8] In February 2006, he resigned from his position as a Joint Commissioner of Income Tax in New Delhi.[7] The Government 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 Team Anna, a strand of 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.[8]

Activism

Parivartan

Kejriwal believes in the dictum that "Change begins with small things".[9] In December 1999, while still in service with the Income Tax Department, he helped found a movement named Parivartan (which means "change"), focused on assisting citizens in navigating income tax, electricity and food ration matters in parts of Delhi. The Parivartan organisation exposed a fake ration card scam in 2008[10][11] but, according to a founder member, did not have a great impact generally and was largely crumbling by 2012.[12] It was for his involvement with Parivartan that Kejriwal had been given the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership in 2006. The award citation noted Parivartan and that that "the board of trustees recognizes [Kejriwal's] activating India's right-to-information movement at the grassroots, empowering New Delhi's poorest citizens to fight corruption by holding government accountable to the people."[10]

Right to Information

Together with Manish Sisodia and Abhinandan Sekhri, Kejriwal established the Public Cause Research Foundation in December 2006, donating the prize money he had received from the Ramon Magsaysay Award as a seed fund.[13] This new body paid the employees of Parivartan.[12] Kejriwal has used the Right to Information 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.[6]

Jan Lokpal Bill

Main article: Jan Lokpal Bill

Kejriwal was the civil society representative member of the committee constituted by the Government of India to draft a Jan Lokpal bill, following a campaign for introduction of such legislation that featured Anna Hazare. He had been arrested along with Hazare on defying Police directive to give a written undertaking that they will not go to JP Park. He attacked the government on this and said there was a need for a debate over police power to detain and release people at will.[14][15]

Political career

General

Kejriwal established the AAP in November 2012 as he believed that electoral politics was the next logical step in the fight against corruption.[16] This caused a rift between him and Hazare.[17] The party name reflects the phrase Aam Aadmi, or "common man", whose interests Kejriwal proposed to represent.[18] He became the fifth most mentioned Indian politician on social media channels in the run-up to the Delhi legislative assembly election of 2013.[19]

Chief Minister of Delhi

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.[20] Kejriwal defeated incumbent Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit of the Indian National Congress in her constituency of New Delhi[21] by a margin of 25,864 votes.[22]

AAP formed a minority government in the hung assembly, (claiming support for the action gauged from opinion polls) with outside support from the eight Indian National Congress MLAs, one Janta Dal MLA and one independent MLA.[23][24] 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.[25][26] He was in charge of Delhi's Home Ministry, Power, Planning, Finance, Vigilance ministries.[citation needed]

Resignation

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.[27] 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.[28]

2014 national elections

Kejriwal said in January, prior to his resignation as chief minister, that he would not contest a seat in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.[29] Later in that month, party members persuaded him to change his mind, [30] and on 25 March, he agreed to contest against the BJP prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi,[31] from Varanasi,[32] but lost to Modi.[33]

Personal life

Kejriwal is married to 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 the Vipassana meditation technique for many years.[4] Kejriwal is known to be averse to ceremony and does not celebrate his birthday. He has diabetes.[34]

After 5 months of resignation from the post of Delhi's CM, Kejriwal has evacuated the governmental accommodation in Delhi and shifted to the house situated in Kaushambi.[35]

Awards and recognitions

Authored books

  • Swaraj. HarperCollins Publishers India. 2012. ISBN 9350299372.

References

  1. ^ Mallet, Victor (14 February 2014). "Anti-corruption chief minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal resigns". Financial Times. Retrieved 10 April 2014.
  2. ^ "Arvind Kejriwal quits over Jan Lokpal". The Hindu. 14 February 2014. Retrieved 10 April 2014. {{cite news}}: |first= missing |last= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ "Kejriwal makes common cause with traders: I'm Baniya too". Indian Express. 29 March 2014.
  4. ^ a b c "Ramon Magsaysay Award to Activist Arvind Kejriwal". Ramon Magsaysay Foundation.
  5. ^ Jeelani, Mehboob (1 September 2011). "The Insurgent". The Caravan. Retrieved 10 April 2014.
  6. ^ a b c "Arvind Kejriwal". Ashoka. 2004. Archived from the original on 28 September 2013. Retrieved 24 September 2013.
  7. ^ a b "Federal Government accepts Kejriwal's resignation after six years in 2011". CNN-IBN. Press Trust of India (PTI). 21 December 2011. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
  8. ^ a b "Govt finally accepts Arvind Kejriwal's resignation". The Times of India. 21 December 2011. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
  9. ^ "RM Awardee is Delhi's new, youngest chief minister". Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation. 29 January 2014. Retrieved 19 March 2014.
  10. ^ a b c "Magsaysay Award: "Change Begins With Small Things"". Outlook. Retrieved 31 July 2006.
  11. ^ "One family, many ration cards and a major scam". The Hindu. 8 July 2008.
  12. ^ a b Anand, Panini (13 August 2012). "The More They Change: Kejriwal's original experiment in Sundar Nagri lies in tatters". Outlook India. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  13. ^ "Public Cause Research Foundation | About | People's empowerment through transparent, accountable governance". Pcrf.in. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  14. ^ "Anna to stay in Tihar till venue is ready". The Times of India. 18 August 2011. Retrieved 26 June 2013.
  15. ^ Parashar, Arpit (9 April 2011). "Members of JanLokPal Draft Committee". New Delhi: Tehelka. Retrieved 6 August 2013.
  16. ^ "Exclusive Interview With Arvind Kejriwal". India Opines. Retrieved 17 September 2013.
  17. ^ "Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal rift widens to breaking point". DNA India. 16 December 2013. Retrieved 19 March 2014.
  18. ^ "Arvind Kejriwal formally launches Aam Aadmi Party". India Today. Retrieved 26 November 2012.
  19. ^ "Can Social media be a gamechanger in 2014 Lok Sabha elections?". Daily Bhaskar. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
  20. ^ "28 AAP MLAs choose Arvind Kejriwal as leader in Delhi Assembly". IBN. 9 December 2013. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
  21. ^ "Assembly election 2013: Arvind Kejriwal sweeps Sheila Dikshit right out of her constituency". NDTV. 8 December 2013.
  22. ^ "Election Commission of India Official Results". Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  23. ^ "Arvind Kejriwal to be Delhi's youngest CM; who will his ministers be?". Zee News. 23 December 2013.
  24. ^ "Fulfill promises, Sheila Dikshit tells Aam Aadmi Party". NDTV. IANS. 23 December. Retrieved 2013-12-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  25. ^ "Arvind Kejriwal becomes Delhi's youngest Chief Minister". IBN. 28 December 2013. Retrieved 28 December 2013.
  26. ^ "Kejriwal sworn-in as Delhi's Chief Minister". The Hindu. 28 December 2013. Retrieved 28 December 2013.
  27. ^ "Arvind Kejriwal quits as Delhi CM after Jan Lokpal fiasco". Economic Times. Retrieved 15 February 2014.
  28. ^ "Arvind Kejriwal quits over Jan Lokpal". The Hindu. 14 February 2014. Retrieved 3 March 2014.
  29. ^ "Will not contest 2014 Lok Sabha elections: Arvind Kejriwal". 4 January 2014. Retrieved 5 March 2014.
  30. ^ Parsai, Gargi (19 January 2014). "I will contest Lok Sabha polls: Kejriwal". The Hindu. Retrieved 5 March 2014.
  31. ^ "Kejriwal accepts Varanasi challenge, says he will contest election against Modi". The Times of India. PTI. 25 March 2014. Retrieved 26 March 2014.
  32. ^ Rai, Man Mohan (7 March 2014). "Varanasi turns into battlefield; Narendra Modi, Arvind Kejriwal, Mukthar Ansari to contest elections". Economic Times. Retrieved 10 April 2014.
  33. ^ "Election Results 2014: Disappointed With Results in Delhi, Admits Arvind Kejriwal". NDTV. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
  34. ^ "All you want to know about Arvind Kejriwal". The Times of India. 24 December 2013. Retrieved 13 March 2014.
  35. ^ "Kejriwal shifts to Kaushambi flat from government house". Patrika Group. No. 29 July 2014. Retrieved 29 July 2014.
  36. ^ Profile "Satyendra K. Dubey Memorial Award". IIT Kanpur Alumni Association. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)
  37. ^ "CNN-IBN Indian of the Year". Retrieved 25 August 2011.
  38. ^ "Indian of the Year: Big winners". New Delhi: IBNLive.in.com. 20 June 2007. Retrieved 24 September 2013.
  39. ^ "Distinguished Alumnus of IIT Kharagpur". Retrieved 22 August 2011.
  40. ^ "Association for India's Development". Retrieved 1 November 2011.
  41. ^ "ET Awards: The top 10 of 2010". The Economic Times. 7 October 2010. Retrieved 30 June 2013.
  42. ^ "NDTV Indian of the Year 2011". NDTV. 18 October 2011. Retrieved 30 June 2013.
  43. ^ "CNN IBN Indian of the Year". CNN IBN. 20 December 2013. Retrieved 21 December 2013.
  44. ^ Sardesai, Rajdeep (23 April 2014). "The 100 Most Influential People: Arvind Kejriwal". Time magazine. US. Retrieved 26 April 2014.
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Political offices
Preceded by Chief Minister of Delhi
28 December 2013 – 14 February 2014 		Succeeded by

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