Aam Aadmi Party was founded on very lofty principles, on the coat tails of protest fasts by social activist Anna Hazare. Hazare, himself a die-hard Gandhian follows princples laid down by India’s father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi. These principles include – truth, non violence, self-governence, among others.
These soon caught the imagination of one and all, and people from all walks of life began to join the ‘movement’, fed up with the usual political parties, which were all basically the same under different garbs. Corruption, nepotism, sycophancy, in-fighting, were and have been the hallmarks of Indian political parties.
Expecting a revolutionary change in the way things worked, a number of people joined the newly formed Aam Aadmi Party, including NRIs, who were concerned for their motherland, and thus poured in money to make the AAP viable.
However, it is alleged that soon things changed, and slowly AAP started deviating it’s path to the well trodden one, used by all other political parties. Soon, groups started forming, and those who raised even one voice of protest were summarily dismissed, so much so that according to Munish Raizada, he, along with over a hundred founding members were not even allowed to attend the recent National Council meeting in Delhi.
Raizada, a NRI, was also soon dismissed from the party for ‘anti party activity’.
Protesting this, and the shift in the party, and the ideologies on which it was formed, Raizada and others are observing November 29 as protest day by observing fast. This move has been welcomed by a lot of founding members who feel let down by Kejriwal’s mechinations.
