India’s leading anti-corruption crusader on Saturday “stole” the campaign slogan used by the ruling Indian National Congress party as the name for his new political movement as he readied to do electoral battle.
Arvind Kejriwal, a diminutive and bespectacled former government tax official, announced his group would be called the Aam Admi Party, which means the “Common Man’s Party.”
Aam admi is a catchphrase long used by the Congress party, which has dominated India for most of its post-independence history, to connect with the hundreds of millions of poor that it views as its biggest constituency.
Kejriwal, whose string of corruption accusations against the graft-tainted Congress government and some of India’s most powerful people have unsettled the elite, said “common men, women and children” formed the new party.
“They are not politicians. They are fed up of politicians. They are the people who are fed up of corruption,” he told a televised news conference.
“This is why the common man has decided to challenge them. Now the common man will sit in parliament,” he said, declaring his party will contest the next general election due in early 2014.
“This party will change the way politics and political parties function,” he said.
Kejriwal, whose hero is Indian independence icon Mahatma Gandhi, first came to prominence last year, serving as the chief lieutenant to veteran anti-corruption campaigner Anna Hazare during the latter’s 12-day hunger strike.
The protest against graft galvanized huge support among India’s middle class dismayed by the nation’s deep-rooted corruption.
However, while Hazare has since backed away from the headlines, his protege has carried on the fight.
Kejriwal has won national attention with his almost weekly salvoes against high-profile targets, ignoring critics who have have accused him of acting irresponsibly with his “name and shame” tactics.
He has accused Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs Salman Khurshid, a Congress party member, of siphoning off funds from a family-run non-profit help group — charges he has strongly denied.
Nitin Gadkari, president of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, is facing an inquiry over claims about his business financing.
Kejriwal has also taken on Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi — seen as India’s most powerful politician — accusing him of unfairly benefiting from property deals.
Information Minister Manish Tewari dismissed Kejriwal’s appropriation of the Congress party’s favorite phrase.
“Aam admi has been synonymous with the Congress party since 1885. Nobody can hijack the intrinsic relation between Congress and the aam admi,” he told reporters.
Kejriwal said the formal launch of his party will be today, coinciding with the day India’s Constitution was adopted in 1949.
Analysts say while public disquiet about corruption is high, Kejriwal’s party will face tough competition in the political arena with scores of parties contesting elections in India, the world’s largest democracy.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to