A group of 70-odd people men and a few women all from Delhi’s western part of Karol Bagh sit and listen with rapt attention in a small room of the office of India Against Corruption in Kaushambi in Gaziabad.
The speaker is Arvind Kejriwal the man who is building his new political party aiming to do it in one year what people say normally takes two decades. Majority of people don’t know about their rights. We should tell them their rights. And we must work in our respective area. This is what Kejriwal tells the groups, says Mahavir a property dealer from Rohini in Delhi.
Each session lasts an hour and slightly more. And then the next batch of volunteers and prospective party workers enter the room for their turn of indoctrination in Kejriwal’s brand of politics.
By evening five to six batches are done and kejriwal leaves for a public meeting in matiyala to take up the issue of electricity bills being inflated by the Delhi Government.
Sanjay Kansal a human resource trainer and a professional organisation builder who is volunteering to build a political party takes over from Kejrwal.
This session is with people from Mundka in west Delhi. Kansal gives them a phone number of the contact person in the area. "In your area if you plan an activity send a message to the contact point in the area. And your event would be on our website." Everyone keys in the number into their cell phones. But people are not satisfied. "What about Arvindji’s number?" Many of them ask almost together.
Kansal smiles and agrees with a caution. "He may not take your calls. You may send a message if it is urgent. But if you do it too frequently he may stop reading them too…So the best way is to convey your messages to your contact point," he tells them. Then as he winds up he asks them of they wanted to go to Farukkaad for a day long protest there against Law Minister Salman Khurshid.
Almost everyone wants to go. Those who want to go may give Rs 500 to the contact person and then come to this place on the night before November 1. Buses would be waiting.
Some ask Kansal the plan of action in Farukkabad. That would be revealed on the way. Maybe we won't come back. Maybe we will be beaten up….Kansal says laughing and the rest join him.
Kansal tells them that offices would be opened in their area. Of course you have to open the office, he adds. Then as he rises to leave he tells them: Start wearing the "I am Aam Admi" caps and distributing them also. You can buy them from the office here,…
Kansal shies away from talking about himself and says he has been in the profession of building business organizations for the last 25 years, he says.
There are many like him who are in the task of building the party in different parts of the country and especially Delhi, says Manish Sisodia who has been with Kejriwal since 2005.
It is obvious the emphasis now is Delhi where the party would be tested for the first time. And there is a feeling among party members that if it does well here it would do well anywhere…
"Whether it wins or loses, I am with them," says Jarishankar an elderly man from Nangoloi, who is attending the training sessions for volunteers.
Most people who are coming forward are not having any wish or hope of becoming MLAs or MPs. They just want to work for change. I think that is what is positive about it all, says Sisodia who says the target right now is to reach every house in Delhi and the whole country, through volunteers.
Volunteers are being told at these meetings to open offices at the ward, Assembly and Lok Sabha constituency levels. And a contact person is being appointed at every level. The party is being woven together slowly like a spider’s web. Prahlad Pandey a management lecturer in Indore in Madhya Pradesh is now dedicated full time in building the party in the state, says Sisodia.
An engineer has come forward to take care of Jamshedpur, he says. That would build the party in Jharkhand..These people would be the foundation stones for the party, he says.
Satish Sharma a chartered accountant in Uttarakhand has told his partners that he was taking a break and was going to work for the IAC’s party. "He is now working full time for us’’, says Sisodia. It is not degrees but the passion that is giving energy to the party building work, he adds.
Another young man in Haldwani who had contested and won panchayat elections from the Congress had left the post in disappointment and is now mobilizing people for IAC in his area. He felt change was possible with this effort…Same is the story of Devendra Thakur a petty contractor in Gaziabad who has left his work to his brother and plunged into party work for IAC.
Thakur is an image of dedication and is now busy creating district coordination committee, a working committee and a lokpal committee for the party in Gaziabad.
IAC leaders never come here for meetings for they trust me to do the job. And I can never let them down, he says touched by their faith in him.
The party structure is a miniature of what the party would be in the whole country, he says.
Those in the coordination committee with media, IT, advisory wings will never contest elections and will be supreme. It would provide the resources in terms of local issues, information and learning to the working committee which will have committee up to the ward level, he says. Five members each from the Assembly level and 10 from the ward would be there in this. The latter would do membership drives.
If there are any complaints against the members in the working committee it goes to the Lok Pal Committee which would give a verdict in 21 days and then the member has to reform before he rejoins.
As for himself he says he will never contest elections. A teacher creates a 1,000 students. If he himelf gets preoccupied in pursuing other goals, who will create good students, he asks. And he is off to hold a meeting with volunteers.