New Delhi:
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), India's newest political party, was formally launched today by activist Arvind Kejriwal in the presence of thousands of supporters."This party is result of our struggle against corruption," said Kejriwal, who had announced the name of his party Saturday.
Mr Kejriwal also formally released the party's constitution, a key feature of which disallows the relative of a party member in the state executive or national executive councils, from getting a place there.
He made the crowd of his supporter take four vows that he says are key to the Aam Admi Party. "We vow that we weill neither give nor accept bribes. We vow to get voter identity cards made and go and cast our vote. We vow to not take money, alcohol or any other form of bribe to cast our vote. And we vow not to cast our vote based on caste or religion," the crowd gathered at Delhi's Jantar Mantar repeated after him.
Mr Kejriwal's colleague Manish Sisodia declared the name of the party to the gathering at central Delhi's Parliament Street near Jantar Mantar and said: "It is our party."
Mr Sisodia also announced the names of the other 23 members of the national executive body. These include Sisodia himself as well as Prashant Bhushan, Dinesh Waghela, Sanjay Singh, Gopa Rai and Kumar Vishwas.
"Kejriwal takes the position as the national convenor. Pankaj Gupta would be the national secretary, Krishna Kanth would be national treasurer of AAP," Mr Waghela said.The names were decided Sunday in the national executive meet, a party member told IANS.
Kumar Vishwas announced the name of official website
www.aamaadmiparty.org, and social networking accounts on Facebook (
aamaadmiparty) and Twitter (
@aamaadmiparty) to share the information about the party and its functions.
"The other political parties are thinking about our survival, but we are getting a huge response from across the nation," he announced.
"As many as 200 offices have been opened for functioning of the party, just today (Monday) and about money, its a Aam Aadmi party... they (the aam aadmi) will run it," Mr Vishwas said. "The donations are coming to our party account and people are giving cheques, so they (other parties) need not to worry," he quipped.
"We are getting donations for the party from across India," he said.
Earlier in the day, Kejriwal and his colleagues visited Mahatma Gandhi's memorial Raj Ghat. He also paid tributes to B.R. Ambedkar.
Mr Kejriwal chose to launch his party November 26 as the constitution of India was adopted on this day in 1949.
The activist-turned-politician had said Sunday that he would "go to every village and town in the country for the next one year to convince people against the vote-bank politics of the Congress and the BJP". Both parties, he claimed, "used people only for votes".