The leader of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has struck a deal to become Delhi’s chief minister, promising to clean up politics after a stunning electoral debut that has shaken up the country’s two main parties, reports Reuters India.
Arvind Kejriwal, the mild-mannered former tax official who leads the Aam Aadmi Party, announced on Monday that his party would form a minority government having secured “outside support” from the Congress party that leads the national coalition.
The capital has been stuck in a political impasse for three weeks after a local election on December 4 failed to produce an outright winner.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the largest number of seats in the Delhi assembly but fell short of a majority. The AAP, born out of the anti-graft movement that swept the country two years ago, took second place, pushing the incumbent Congress to the third spot.
The new party, in an unusual move, consulted voters as to whether it should try to form a government with the support of the Congress, which is mired in both national and state-level corruption scandals.
“We asked people through our website, SMS and through public meetings in the last week,” Kejriwal said at a press conference. “The result that has come is that people in big numbers are saying Aam Admi Party should form the government.”
The party has tapped into a growing middle-class anger towards politicians, who are often perceived to be siphoning off public funds instead of providing public services.
Its success in Delhi is an alarm bell for the Congress and the BJP ahead of a national election due by May, underlining that an increasingly young and urban electorate is fed up.
“The main thing (about AAP) is that they are different. Most of the political parties put up criminals as candidates and most of them just get into politics for money,” said Nikhil Ramdev, a 19-year-old law student from West Delhi.
“It’s a business for them. People are getting more and more frustrated. That’s why a first-time party got so many votes.”
Kejriwal’s request to form his new government requires a final sign-off from Delhi’s lieutenant governor, Najeeb Jung.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
