"I am not doing this for publicity but to express my frustration," Kundan Sharma makes it clear at the onset of the interview. The 38-year-old has been in the spotlight since he demanded, on Twitter, that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) should return the money and the blue Maruti Suzuki Wagon R he had donated to it.
"#IDemandMyDonationBackFrom AAP: My blue WAGONR,my Bike & lacs of rupees that I donated2AAP," he had tweeted. Like the muffler, this blue Wagon R had become a brand people came to associate with Arvind Kejriwal the last time he was Delhi's chief minister. It became a symbol of all that Kejriwal stood for - the aam aadmi's chief minister who chose this humble means of transport over fancier government vehicles.
Sharma is perturbed that the media and AAP supporters have taken his tweet literally without realising that he only meant to express his frustration over the party's internal turmoil. "It was merely a tool to convey my disillusionment with the way the party has been functioning and about the rift between [Delhi chief minister] Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav. However, people are now abusing me and my family on social media," he rues.
It started in 2011 when Sharma became a a strong supporter of the Anna Hazare movement. Sharma, who works with an investment banking firm in the UK, volunteered to help with the social media wing of India Against Corruption. "Anna had united the nation against corruption, which is the biggest threat to the country's development. But the movement wasn't going anywhere. At that time, Kejriwal formed a party to tackle this very problem," says Sharma. He found that the common man was finally becoming connected with politics and became an AAP volunteer.
"At that time, the party was a political movement. There was no one leader. Today I can say it is a true-blue political party," he says. Volunteers like him, especially those overseas, contributed financially and in whatever other ways they could. Sharma donated his car, a 2005 Wagon R registered in his wife's name in Delhi.
When Kejriwal assumed charge as Delhi chief minister in 2014, he refused to use the government's official car and commuted in this Wagon R. According to an article on NDTV's website about Sharma's donation, Kejriwal has gifted the car to a party candidate and is seen in an Innova these days.
When asked if AAP responded to his tweets, Sharma said that only one party member, Ashutosh, had tweeted in response. His message read: "Pehli baar sun raha hoon daan ki hui cheez waapas maangi jaati hai. hey Ishwar. Inka bhala karein (It for the first time that I am hearing that someone is demanding the return of something given as a donation. Oh lord! please help him)." There is also a letter (shown recently on TV channels) that AAP reportedly gave to Sharma when he donated the car. It states that the party has accepted the car as "donation from Sharadha Sharma, wife of Kundan Sharma and that henceforth, AAP will be the sole owner of the car and Sharadha Sharma will not have any control or accountability of the vehicle". Many are questioning Sharma's right to ask for the car when AAP had made it clear that it now belonged to the party.
Sharma emphasises that his demand had been symbolic, meant only to express discontent. "I personally consider it quite cheap to ask that they return something that I had given them. I don't want my money or the car back. I was just trying to get a message across."
He says his disillusionment with the party was not something that happened overnight. "I have seen it coming in the past several months," says Sharma, who came to Delhi two days before the state assembly elections in December 2014. "I had submitted evidence against a candidate who I don't want to name. But that candidate is today a sitting MLA. Clearly, no one is bothered," he says.
An AAP official, who does not wish to be named, says, "We simply don't wish to engage with such people."
