Ordinary citizens created and shaped this smashing debut in Indian politics. Embedded in the success story of the Aam Aadmi Party are a multitude of personal stories of sacrifice, triumph and validation. ET brings to you five such stories:Her parents are avowed Marxists. She herself was a supporter of the Left ideology in her early days. Today, Atishi Marlena talks about the marketplace, and increasing competition among power distribution companies in Delhi to improve supply. The key policymaker and manifesto writer of AAP has travelled a long way.Born and brought up in Delhi, the 32-year-old read history in St Stephens College, and went to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, before returning to India. “I have been interested in being a participant in policymaking and education was one area that fascinated me,” she says. After spending a few years teaching in Rishi Valley School in Karnataka, Marlena moved to a small village near Bhopal where she engaged with alternatives, including organic farming and progressive education systems.A believer in policy intervention, Atishi continued to work with several non-profits and associations like Sambhavana Institute of Public Policy in Himachal Pradesh where she met Prashant Bhushan, an AAP founder. She watched the Anna Hazare anti-corruption movement, from the outside, with some scepticism. “It was a one-issue movement,” she says. ‘It had a similar shade of regulars who come out in such movements.”Even as she met AAP members casually, she came into the party fold only this January, when it began work on policies. What has happened since is something, she says, that can never be taught. It was learning on the fly for Marlena and a few others working on policies. AAP created 31 policy committees, each of which deliberated over diverse issues—economic, social, industry and welfare, among others. The 150-odd people on these committees came from varied backgrounds. They came from think-tanks. They included academics and those who conducted surveys. They sought AAP volunteers, who were campaigning on the ground, for inputs. “This is a long process and we are still evolving,” says Marlena. Several of AAP’s policies have been criticised, even described as anarchy. “Each of the policies have been developed after thorough research and deliberations,” defends Marlena, adding that these are not overnight fixes. Take the promise of 700 litres of free water per day per household.Water, she says, is important as its quantity and supply timing impacts people’s choices, and the figure of 700 litres was based on research on consumption patterns, existing infrastructure and the prevailing ‘tanker mafia’ that pilfers water. It does not require additional supply, she adds; it is about making distribution equitable, but it requires existing mafias to be broken, which can take time.Marlena says electricity, water and roads have never been central election issues, which speaks poorly of the political class. “These were issues in every ward and constituency, and we realised this was systemic,” she says. In order to address local nuances, AAP preparing 70 manifestos—one for each constituency in Delhi, plus a central one. It turned out to be a unique but back-breaking exercise, requiring 16 hour days. That AAP is now setting the agenda is a vindication for Marlena. “This is a historic juncture in our democracy and I am happy to be a part of this,” she says, admitting she has finally found her calling in life.Durgesh Pathak, 25, was preparing for his civil services exam in Delhi when he joined the Anna Hazare anti-corruption movement in June 2011. A fragment of that movement coalesced into AAP, with a hesitant Pathak in tow. Now, for this volunteer in charge of door-to-door campaigning, there’s no going back: Pathak has no plans for civil services anymore, but many for AAP.AAP did not have large coffers. So, it innovated to fashion a low-cost campaign. Central to that were its volunteers—students, working professionals, retired folks, homemakers, social workers. “There was always a free flow of ideas,” says Pathak. “With so many youngsters working, sometimes it was difficult to trace an idea to the person who first suggested it. So, we stopped bothering with that and just got down to implementing the potentially good ones.”Its ‘human banner’ was a milder version of guerrilla warfare. Short of funds to rent billboards, AAP hung huge banners on flyovers from 8-11 am—when traffic was high and cops were few. This, however, wasn’t done regularly. “There had to be an element of surprise as well. Plus it was easier to confuse the cops this way,” laughs Pathak. People stopped to see, including Sheila Dikshit. Another innovation was posters on the back of auto-rickshaws. “We needed more places where we could put up our posters for free,” says Pathak. “Since Arvind had sympathies of the auto-driver community, we felt we could reach out to them.”When he joined as volunteer, Pathak, who is from Allahabad and has a master’s degree in English, was unsure. “I was disappointed with the IAC movement. In spite of all our efforts, we could not get the Jan Lokpal Bill passed,” says Pathak. “I don’t even know why and when I decided to join AAP.”Along the way, he found reason. Meeting hundreds of new people everyday has given him a reality check on the “real” problems Indians face. “Political parties are disconnected with people,” he says. A lot of AAP’s campaigning efforts went into people connects. Towards that end, appointing local prabharis (local leaders) was a milestone. “Our volunteers would go door to door to identify people who were willing to campaign for AAP in their locality,” he says. “We would then get special posters printed to display on the façade of their building. It was easier to get the attention of people when one of their own was speaking in our support.”Today, Pathak cannot think of not being associated with AAP. “My outlook has changed,” he says. “Sometimes I worry if I’ll ever be able to go back to my old life if I ever want to.”Ankit Lal grew up on stories of the JP movement of the 1970s as his father was associated with it. “So, I was naturally drawn to the work done by Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal,” says the 29-year-old software engineer who left a company job in January 2012 to help IAC in its social media outreach.His decision did not go down well with his family, especially his father, though he was following in his footsteps. “My father was in college when the JP movement was at its peak. He quit college for two years in between,” explains Lal. “He was familiar with the hardships one faces when you make sacrifices for a social cause. He wanted to protect me from that.” Lal went ahead anyway. “I told him that if he could back up on his feet and give us a good life, so can I.” In the last 18 months, Lal feels he has grown exponentially. “It would have taken me at least 12 years to get to where I am today (in terms of work experience and responsibilities) if I were still in the software firm,” he says.AAP officially logged on to social media on November 26, 2012, when it adopted its constitution. From the beginning, its social media strategy has been unique. Most parties have a national page and state pages on Facebook. AAP, going against the advice of Facebook representatives, launched 70 pages, one for each Delhi constituency. So, members of, say, the GK-II chapter of AAP on Facebook receive updates on their constituency. The party received inputs on local issues, which helped it formulate constituency-specific manifestos.The primary aim of the social media platform was to create awareness about AAP and what it stood for. “Apart from providing content on who were are and what we believe in, our volunteers would focus on drawing people into discussions on Facebook and Twitter,” he says. “We would try to come with interesting posts and tweets, which would be reposted and retweeted.”For Twitter, AAP has a core team of about 15 who devise strategy, and 400-500 volunteers across the world who help execute. To make an issue trend on Twitter, the AAP team would first decide a topic, its hashtag and a time to tweet about it together. “The Twitteratti would take over,” says Lal.On November 29, the top five trends from India on Twitter were on Kejriwal or AAP. Lal now has his eyes on the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, with no plans to return to his old job. “It’s one thing to witness history being made and it’s another to be part of that history,”he says.One day in June, Yogendra Yadav, one of the foremost callers of elections in India, was amused to see a young man explaining Delhi and its constituencies to his leader Arvind Kejriwal. “The man struck me as a happy, casual guy who happened to have an opinion on elections, an upstart with no idealism,” says Yadav. Today, Yadav, with a mixture of pride and admiration, rates Ashish Talwar to be a better psephologist than him.According to Yadav, what makes the 44-yearold special is not numbers or surveys. Talwar’s strength is his intimate knowledge of every ward of Delhi—its social and economic construct, streets, infrastructure, milieu, problems… Between 1996 and 2004, as part of the student wing of the Congress Party, he visited households and walked these streets.Talwar knew Kejriwal from long ago, but had lost touch. They reconnected when AAP was formed. Joining the party full-time only this year, Talwar was the go-to man for every AAP candidate. “Youth played a big role in the AAP campaign, and it shows,” says Talwar, who has a family business. “AAP boasts of 10 of the 11 MLAs between 25 and 35 years. These are the leaders of tomorrow, the next generation.”A true Delhiite in every respect, Talwar was born and raised in Karol Bagh—central to Delhi politics, housing the first Bahujan Samaj Party office under Dalit leader Kanshi Ram. “Politics and elections were part of my DNA as I watched and studied the electoral process using nothing but commonsense, something that is rarely used in Indian politics,” says Talwar.In his days in student politics, Talwar took on many roles: volunteering at a poll booth, handing out electoral slips, working on electoral rolls, assisting MLAs and even an MP. He learnt the basics of mapping polling booths. Typically, an assembly constituency has about 200 polling booths spread over 30-40 polling centres. Party workers have to work on each of these centres, ensuring people have their voter cards and are in the electoral list.When it came to choosing its candidates, AAP challenged the traditional caste-class-religion matrix. “AAP has caught the imagination of the lower- and middle-class, what we describe as the aspirational class,” says Talwar. “Many are first-generation migrants who have come to Delhi for new opportunities. Making Delhi a home is like an acid test for them.” AAP plugged into this aspiration, successfully. “Our internal research and feedback shows that we have got support across sections, castes and class,” adds Talwar.Part of the credit should go to Talwar, who handheld candidates, fed them inputs on their constituencies and voter composition, helped them understand what voters want and how to tap it. “AAP’s legacy will be about bringing a new generation of leaders into Indian politics,” he says.After 25 years in the software industry, Pankaj Gupta quit his cushy job as the MD of a software company in Gurgaon in March 2012 to first join the India Against Corruption movement and then AAP. “Unlike many people associated with the IAC movement, I believe a change can only be brought by entering the system,” he says. “This cannot happen by creating pressure from the outside.” On August 3, 2012, Gupta messaged Arvind Kejriwal that he wanted to join the party.“Arvind replied immediately,” he says. He was given the responsibility of managing the party’s finances, but that had nothing to do with his quantitative skills. “It was just a matter of chance,” adds Gupta. “There was no one looking after this portfolio. Arvind asked me to take this charge and I agreed.”AAP’s funding journey had a good start, with a seed donation of Rs 1 crore from party member and eminent lawyer Shanti Bhushan on the day the party was announced. “Money, in the initial days, would have been our biggest worry,” says Gupta, national general secretary, AAP. “But this (seed donation) was a blessing.”Much more would be needed, but the rookie outfit had no idea about election expenses. Gupta and team took a week to work out a figure: Rs 20 crore—Rs 10 crore to fund the 70 candidates in Delhi and an identical amount to spend on campaigning. This was in April.Initially, AAP thought it would raise all the money online, but soon realised this would not be good enough. Time was crucial. “We had to collect as much as we could because our campaigning had begun much before the elections were announced,” says Gupta. “We had to inform people that there is a third alternative to Congress and BJP. We needed money to get pamphlets and posters printed.” So, in July, it also started approaching people actively.It organised donation camps in colonies, with Kejriwal explaining AAP’s ideology and soliciting their support and donations. “Kejriwal’s charisma of ordinariness and his conviction worked wonders for such donation drives,” says Gupta, adding that people would often end up donating more than they intended after hearing him.September was another turning point: a nonresident Indian (NRI) based in Hong Kong donated his life savings of Rs 50 lakh. “We realised we should also reach out to our supporters abroad more aggressively for help.” Online meetings between Kejriwal and potential donors in the US, Singapore and Hong Kong were organised, and there was no looking back. After the home ministry initiated an inquiry into AAP’s alleged foreign source of funding, the pace and quantum of contributions increased even more. On November 17, about two weeks before schedule, AAP met its Rs 20 crore target.Gupta’s own finances are a different story: his family and he are dipping into their life savings. “Of course, we had to make some lifestyle changes,” he says. But my family has been quite supportive.” Since joining AAP, Gupta has become more patient and, he laughs, “quite shameless” in asking people for money. And he has a new profession, validated by his schoolgoing son. “Once while filling up a school form, I asked him whether I should describe myself as a politician or a software consultant. He said ‘politician’ as a matter of fact.”