Arvind Kejriwal once described himself as “an insignificant man”, but the Indian capital’s top politician is one of the most prominent challengers to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political juggernaut.
The 56-year-old, who India’s top court freed from jail on Friday after months behind bars because of a graft probe his supporters say is politically motivated, began his career as a tax collector.
But he quit his cushy civil service job to campaign against pervasive government corruption, a crusade that brought him national fame.
For the past nine years he has served as chief minister of Delhi, one of the few redoubts of opposition rule in a political landscape otherwise dominated by Modi and his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Kejriwal’s public persona leans into his image as leader of the “common man’s party”, the English translation of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) he helms.
He has eschewed the VIP culture and ostentatious luxuries of other Indian political leaders, riding on Delhi’s underground metro to his first inauguration instead of taking a government vehicle.
His party contests elections under the logo of a broom, evoking his ideals of a clean-out of India’s established political order.
Populist proposals including generous electricity subsidies for the poor have kept up Kejriwal’s support among voters.
His support has endured despite mounting discontent over his inability to address the capital’s worsening air pollution, which blankets the city in noxious smog each winter.
Victory ‘belongs to the people’
While still working with India’s tax office, Kejriwal founded a civil society group that helped connect voters to public services, and in 2006 quit his highly sought-after government job to devote himself to full-time activism.
He had launched campaigns demanding more public transparency as a way of casting light on the country’s notoriously graft-ridden politics.
His successful push for a Right to Information law in 2005 earned him the Ramon Magsaysay Award, an integrity prize known as “Asia’s Nobel”.
Kejriwal won office in 2013, barely a year after AAP’s founding, when he successfully channelled public anger over a series of government graft scandals that caused huge protests in the capital.
“This victory belongs to the people, not to me,” he told reporters after the result, which shocked pundits. “I’m an insignificant man.”
He resigned 49 days later after a chaotic spell in charge, leaving the city without a government for a year and sparking accusations that he was fleeing the tough job of administration.
Another vote was staged in 2015, and during the campaign Kejriwal apologised to the public for abandoning the city.
He was swept back into office after winning over legions of working-class voters willing to give him a second chance, with AAP taking all but three spots in Delhi’s 70-seat assembly.
– Liquor licenses probe –
While in office, Kejriwal has worked to fashion AAP into a national force that can eventually triumph over Modi’s party and lead the world’s most populous country.
In 2022 the party had its first state election victory outside the capital and it has made some modest inroads elsewhere.
But its growth has seen greater scrutiny from investigators.
His government is the subject of a probe by India’s main financial crimes agency over alleged corruption in the allocation of private liquor licenses.
Kejriwal was taken into custody in March but temporarily freed to campaign in national elections held earlier this year.
Critics have accused Modi’s government of using criminal investigation agencies to target opponents, and Kejriwal has long insisted that accusations of wrongdoing against him are false.
“I want to tell Modi that if Kejriwal is corrupt then no one in this world is honest,” he told reporters last year.
