What the verdict means for Arvind Kejriwal

In 2014, Arvind Kejriwal suddenly became the third most important politician in India after Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi. He had what they did not —a professional background, credibility as a civil society activist, zero political baggage that allowed him to cast himself as an anti-system crusader, a team of politically idealistic colleagues from diverse disciplines, a pool of volunteers swayed by the promise of a different kind of politics, and a people’s movement propelling him.

Kejriwal made mistakes but recovered, won two sweeping mandates in Delhi, and transformed from being a crusader to offering a sample of credible governance in education and health, two domains that remain crucially under neglected.