AAP has reason to cheer: MLAs tie the knot, have babies

Bells have been ringing in the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) -- not alarm bells, as party detractors would think, but cheery wedding bells.
Its poll performances in 2017 may have been a dampener, and AAP may have got flak from various quarters for not taking adequate measures to tackle Delhi's polluted air, but on the personal front, celebration is in the air, with weddings and newborns.
Two AAP legislators--Sanjeev Jha (Burari) and Vishesh Ravi (Karol Bagh) -- tied the knot this year. Two others -- Sarita Singh and Akilesh Pati Tripathi-- became parents.
Jha got married in June and Ravi in February. Singh gave birth to a baby earlier this month.

There were some marriages and births last year, too.
Singh, the 31-year-old MLA from Rohtas Nagar, got hitched in 2016, as did Kirari MLA Rituraj. Dissident lawmaker and Karawal Nagar MLA Kapil Mishra, Tilak Nagar's Jarnail Singh and Tripathi became fathers in 2016.

"In other parties you see MLAs' sons and daughters getting married. But in AAP, it is our MLAs who are getting married. This reflects how young our MLAs are and how youthful the Aam Aadmi Party is," said activist-turned politician and AAP's Greater Kailash MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj, who, too, became a father after becoming a legislator.
The average age of an AAP MLA is 41, and the cabinet is one of the youngest in the country.

Rituraj, at 29, is the youngest MLA in Delhi, while the eldest AAP member in the Legislative Assembly is Speaker Ram Niwas Goyal, who is 69.
MLAs such as Rituraj, Deputy Speaker Rakhi Birla and Prakash Jarwal, lawmaker from Deoli, had just crossed the minimum age bar when they first contested the Assembly polls. Rituraj and Birla, a former minister, were 26 while Jarwal was 25 when they made their electoral debut.
Activists with roots in the anti-graft movement led by Anna Hazare, many of the MLAs are founder-members of AAP. Most are also below the age of 50 -- Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia is 45 and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, 49.

The MLAs said because they were busy forming a new party -- AAP turned five this month -- they put their personal lives on the back-burner, devoting time and energy to their party and political careers.
The party faced polls three years in a row -- for the Delhi Assembly in 2013 and 2015 and Lok Sabha in 2014.
Leaders said the news of the weddings had cheered up the party, which fared poorly in the Punjab and Goa Assembly polls and sank without a trace in the local MCD elections held earlier this year.
"Marriage was not on my mind as all the time was consumed in solving people's problems. But my parents refused to budge. They had stopped talking to me for the last six months because I was not getting married," said Tripathi, who arrived in Delhi at the age of 21 to try out his luck in the civil services. He finally got married in 2015.

AAP leaders recalled how Singh was pregnant when she, along with other AAP MLAs, sat on a protest in front of the LG House, demanding that Lt Governor Anil Baijal clear the government file on mohalla clinics, or local health centres.
"Politics can sometimes take a toll on you and in such times you need a strong family support," Mishra said.
Of course, AAP is not the only the party with members young enough to get married.
Shiv Sena MP and first time-lawmaker Shrikant Shinde (30) was married earlier this year. Jaivardhan Singh, son of senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh, a first-time MLA of the Bhopal Legislative Assembly, tied the knot after winning his debut polls in 2013.