AAP's simplicity impresses people

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has not only changed politics in India, but has also set a new sartorial trend for politicians and ministers.

Looking like the common man in every way, Aam Aadmi Party ministers’ clothes – jeans, check shirt, muffler, pullover, sneakers et al – have left visitors to Delhi Secretariat as well as bureaucrats bemused.

Following the footsteps of Delhi Chief Minister and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, the six ministers, all first-time legislators, turn up for work often wearing the trademark AAP white Gandhian cap that they wore during the party’s campaign. Visitors to the Secretariat are surprised as none of the ministers fit the stereotype of the traditional minister or politician. Many visitors who came to meet them noted, their casual dress style is like that of the man on the street, “aam aadmi”.

Even an IAS officer posted in the Delhi government remarked on the ministers’ simplicity. “It is unusual that a minister wears a cap and looks like a common man. We have never seen such things in the past,” the senior bureaucrat, who did not wish to be named, said.

The youngest member of Kejriwal’s cabinet—26-year-old Women and Child, Social Welfare and Languages Minister Rakhi Birla—comes to work donning the party cap. Casually dressed in a cotton salwar-kameez, topped with a Nehru jacket, scarf around the neck and sneakers on her feet, Birla shares the eighth floor on Secretariat with Transport Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj.

Bharadwaj is usually attired in a simple trouser-shirt with a pullover. He is the only minister who rarely wears the party cap to office.