From a UP village to Delhi Vidhan Sabha: Pathak’s political arc
HT Correspondent
NEW DELHI: One of the youngest members of the Aam Aadmi Party’s political affairs committee, Durgesh Pathak began his public life from the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare by enlisting as a volunteer in 2011, and later became a part of the AAP since the party’s inception in November 2012.
On Sunday, after winning the bypoll to the Rajinder Nagar assembly constituency, Pathak said, he had come to Delhi to prepare for civil services examination.
“I come from a humble background. I belong to a small village in Uttar Pradesh. No one from my village has been elected the head of the zilla parishad, let alone becoming an MLA,” Pathak, 34, said.
Pathak, who holds two Master’s degrees — first in English literature from Allahabad University and the second in public policy from Georgetown University, USA — comes from the Sikhora village in the Uttar Pradesh’s Sant Kabir Nagar district.
In 2014, he got his first important role in the AAP when he was made the co-convener of the party’s Delhi unit.
In the 2015 Delhi assembly elections, Pathak was put in charge of the organisation and campaign in 35 constituencies, of which party won in 34. The AAP won 67 of the 70 seats in Delhi.
After this, he was sent by the party to Punjab to prepare a strong organisational set up in the run up to the Punjab assembly elections in 2017. He was made the co-in charge there along with AAP senior leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh.
The Rajinder Nagar bypoll which Pathak won on Sunday was however not the electoral battle contested by him.
In 2020, Pathak contested as the AAP nominee from the Karawal Nagar seat in north-east Delhi, but lost to the BJP even as the Kejriwal-led party came to power with a resounding victory for the second time in Delhi.
Recently, he was also made the in-charge of AAP’S party unit in Himachal Pradesh where the party is going to contest the state polls. He is also in charge of the party’s municipal affairs.
Rajinder N MLA