Spider-Man Arvind Kejriwal
Updated On: 13 May, 2024 06:52 AM IST | Mumbai | Ajaz Ashraf
The Delhi CM remains the quintessential outsider despite playing by the insider’s electoral rulebook. Possessing a keen understanding of the power of symbolism, he is now a metaphor for injustice
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Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal at the Aam Aadmi Party office in New Delhi, on May 11, a day after receiving interim bail from the Supreme Court. Pic/PTI
When Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party swept, in 2015, the Delhi Assembly elections, winning all but three of 70 seats, political psychologist Ashis Nandy, in an interview, said the greatest challenge before the emerging leader was to retain his appeal as an outsider, generally defined as one who isn’t reared in the political system. Nandy said: “When you come in as an outsider and then try to become an insider, you sacrifice your appeal right there. The Mufflerman should remain like Spider-Man, an outsider. I am not saying he should be a complete outsider because that is suicidal. But he should have one foot outside.”
Rarely does a person with a civil society background float a political party. But this is exactly what Kejriwal did, constituting the AAP in November 2012 to fight the 2013 Delhi Assembly elections. He campaigned from his rickety Wagon R, which would grumble every time it went up Delhi’s flyovers. He won 28 seats, and formed the government with the outside support of the Congress, against which it had campaigned furiously.
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