New Rajasthan AAP president says family row fuelled his desire to change ‘system’

Even as the family fortunes hit nadir, Paliwal says, his parents ensured a good education for his six siblings and him. In the early 1980s, the 54-year-old recalls working for Rs 5 per day at a Kanpur factory, making cardboards manually. He moved to Kota, Rajasthan, seeking better prospects. A shop for rubber stamps followed, and then in 1996, a car accessories business, which is now run by his 25-year-old son.

Paliwal says he was drawn to politics via the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare, which included Arvind Kejriwal among other eventual AAP stalwarts. Paliwal himself became one of the founding members of the AAP in November 2012. Before that, Paliwal’s grandfather Shivkumar Paliwal was an MLC in the family’s native state Uttar Pradesh for about a year or so in the 1960s.

Along with the AAP team in Kota, Paliwal has actively worked for the party, including in Delhi elections, Kejriwal’s Varanasi campaign against Narendra Modi in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, and more recently, AAP campaigns in Goa and Punjab.

The party made him in-charge of the Tonk-Sawai Madhopur Lok Sabha seat, and in the 2018 Assembly polls, he handled Assembly segments within the Kota Lok Sabha constituency (from where Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla was elected).

In 2015, as part of a protest against “VIP culture” in Kota, AAP workers led by Paliwal had forcibly tried to remove the red beacon atop the vehicle of Deputy Mayor Sunita Vyas of the BJP. “They did not register a case for illegal use of the beacon, but lodged one against us, alleging misbehaviour with a woman,” Paliwal said. All the protesters were arrested and sent to a week-long judicial custody, before being released. The case is still going on in court.

In 2017, Paliwal was among AAP workers who protested against The Criminal Laws (Rajasthan Amendment) Bill, 2017, which was seen as seeking to muzzle the press and shield judges and government servants from investigation into any wrongdoing. He faced an FIR over the protest.

The AAP has ambitious plans for Rajasthan, including contesting all the 200 seats in the coming Assembly elections. Paliwal talks about every village and dhani (hutment) in Rajasthan having its own issue, with some universal: “We need better health services and education. A poor person cannot get his daughter to become a doctor.”

He talks about the Ashok Gehlot government having implemented the Right to Hearing Act (RHA) in 2012, which promises timely disposal of people’s complaints, coinciding with the AAP’s rise in Delhi. And to improve upon RHA and The Rajasthan Guaranteed Delivery of Public Services Act, 2011, the Congress party had included Accountability Law in their 2018 Assembly polls manifesto. “Yet, the government has not moved on it and it hasn’t been tabled yet,” says Naveen. So pushing for Accountability Law will be one of AAP’s key issues.

However, the road is long. In the 2018 Assembly polls, all of the 142 official candidates fielded by the AAP had lost their deposits. Asked what is different this time, Paliwal says, “Back then, we had a dearth of organisation. In 2018, we offered the people of Rajasthan an option, but could not present it in an impactful manner, as our Delhi government had only been around for five years. Now, we are asking for votes in the name of our work. Today, the AAP has been elected to power in Delhi thrice. Looking at its functioning, we got a massive mandate in Punjab. In Rajasthan’s villages too, every person now wants Kejriwal.”

On March 25, the day Paliwal assumed charge, AAP MLA and Rajasthan in-charge Vinay Mishra said the party chose him “considering his sacchi deshbhakti (true patriotism) and imaandari (honesty)”.

Paliwal says he is grateful to the party “for handing such a small-time party worker like me such a huge responsibility”, and hopes to fulfill what he set out to do. “I joined the AAP so that the life of an aam aadmi becomes easier. That is what I will work for.”