Delhi Elections 2020: Meet Arvind Kejriwal, the 'common man' CM from Aam Aadmi Party

The voting for the Delhi Assembly Election is on Feb 8, and parties have campaigned to the best of their abilities on all possible platforms, from virtual to reality.

The fight for the national capital's CM seat is as heated as ever as the post is the face of the city and Delhi is the seat of power.

Arvind Kejriwal, the founder of the Aam Aadmi Party, and the incumbent face of Delhi was up in full swing to retain his reign.

Who is Arvind Kejriwal?

Born on August 16th, 1968 in Haryana, Arvind Kejriwal is a social activist turned politician.

Arvind Kejriwal is the seventh and the second-youngest Chief Minister of Delhi. He is the founder of the Aam Aadmi Party, which rose from the 2011 Indian anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare.

The movement aimed to uproot corruption in the Indian government through the introduction of the Jan Lokpal Bill.

Kejriwal is a graduate of IIT Kharagpur who majored in Mechanical Engineering in 1985.

He worked at the Tata Steel in 1989 but quit his job later to appear for the Civil Services exam.

He shifted to Kolkata in 1992 and worked with Mother Teresa's The Missionaries of Charity, the Ramakrishna Mission and the Nehru Yuva Kendra.

In 1995, Kejriwal became the Joint Commissioner of Income Tax in the Indian Revenue Service (IRS).

Power of a 'common man'

The Aam Aadmi Party was formally launched in November 2012, along with the Jan Lokpal activists, in the interest of battling the government, but which also uneventfully led to a battle of wills between Hazare and Kejriwal.

Kejriwal was appointed as the party's national convenor and in the 2013 elections, they won 28 seats out of 70 and Kejriwal even broke Congress leader and the then CM Sheila Dikshit's iron fort in the New Delhi constituency.

Bharatiya Janata Party won 31 seats in the election, which lead to a hung Assembly.

With the support of Congress' eight seats, Kejriwal took oath as Delhi's CM, only to resign in 2014 since his government failed to pass the Jan Lokpal Bill.

He came back in 2015, AAP hit an electoral high spot winning 67 seats, leaving BJP only three and Congress empty-handed.

Family

Kejriwal has a brother Manoj Kejriwal and a sister Ranjana Kejriwal.

Arvind Kejriwal married his former IRS colleague Sunita, and has a son, Pulkit Kejriwal and a daughter Harshita Kejriwal.

From fame to defamation

Kejriwal has mounting defamation charges against him. In 2014, he released a 'list of the most corrupt politicians in India' for which he faced blows from BJP leaders such as Nitin Gadkari and Arun Jaitley, and Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Majithia. Thereafter, Kejriwal apologised to Gadkari and Congress leader Kapil Sibal.

In March 2016, the Delhi High Court asked Arvind Kejriwal and suspended BJP MP Kirti Azad to file written statements in a civil defamation suit of Rs five crore filed by District Cricket Association for the CM's earlier allegedly false and defamatory statements against Arun Jaitley and his family members.

Will the 'common man' win again?

Arvind Kejriwal has raised the bar for his adversaries, from putting forth a report card for the party to slashing electricity bills, providing free bus and metro rides for women, setting up wifi points and 'mohalla' clinics.

Will Delhi opt for the common man's cap and muffle or will the Centre colour the city saffron like the Lok Sabha polls?

It is over to the voters now.