Why I support AAP conditionally

As an active citizen of India, I can only offer conditional support to political parties and candidates because I am married to India's cause and not to a given political party, candidate or ideology. I don't believe my responsibility starts and ends with voting but rather by closely following individual public policy developments (not TV debates pls) and supporting or rejecting particular policy proposal based on my independent research and analysis. Essentially, my engagement with India's political process is wholesome and I call upon my friends to do the same to whatever degree possible if we are to see sustainable change across the vast swathe of land that is India.

Given below is my current opinion which I reserve the right to update for above mentioned reasons:

Why I support AAP in first place:(Conditions in a separate section below)

• Courage to challenge the blindly accepted paradigm of India's development model which includes massive environmental and civil rights violations in the pretext of capitalism. Over last 5 years, India's economic policy has increasingly tilted toward neo-liberalism making it the sole economic policy supported both by ruling as well as opposition party. Projects in different states smack of crony capitalism (Eg: Lavasa in Maharashtra, Adani port in Gujarat and POSCO in Orissa) although Gujarat was especially vigorous in land grabbing by violating all and sundry laws to support large  monopolistic industries. Despite that, Gujarat's model was singled out as the ideal future economic model. There promulgation by Guj Govt and public announcements by Modi bordered on false propaganda and deliberate misinformation. At the same time, some friends and acquaintances - regional journalists and activists - depicted a different picture of this land, a place where RTI requests were routinely ignored and dissent arm twisted in to acquiescence. It was especially shocking that none of the leaders of national stature questioned the obvious discrepancies in numbers and statistics of Gujarat state. I myself spent as week in Nov 2013 discussing even further were university scholars, farmer leaders, workers groups who provided a sinister picture of how law of the land had no place in Gujarat. Arvind Kejriwal was the first leader with national media attention to challenge this blindly accepted paradigm. His courage to actually visit Gujarat despite the hostile environment and communicate his findings (which were consistent with my independent learning) caused me to trust AAP to raise the most pertinent questions about neo-liberal economic model.
• No apparent bias toward Congress or BJP: As much as BJP criticizes AAP today, it was AAP that broke the hallowed citadel of the Gandhis by exposing serious irregularities in Vadra deals in Haryana. When figures like Baba Ramdev were expelled, the last vestiges of religious symbolism were uprooted from AAP's precursor, IAC. But the defiant questioning of the Gujarat model made it clear that AAP was truly an independent party and will spare neither Gandhis nor Modi.
• Personal information of Arvind Kejriwal's committment: I have gotten to know Arvind Kejriwal and his work over 8 years through several common friends and I understand him to have the highest degree of personal probity and honest in public life. Same is true for Prashant Bhushan, Yogendra Yadav and Medha Patkar. There is no other party where I feel the same about such 4 senior party figures.
• Grass-roots activists as politicians: AAP has given tickets to many grass roots activists across the country whose work I have followed and vigorously supported for several years like Soni Sori and SP Udaykumar. Over the years, as it became evident that some of these activists were also good public speakers or possessed acute inter-personal skills, I wondered if some political outfit will give them a platform to run for political office. AAP answered those questions.
• Environmental Issues: Although discourse of environmental issues is discouraging absent in Indian elections, 

I support AAP on these conditions:

• Inner Party Democracy: As founder and convener, Arvind Kejriwal should bring more democracy and transparency within AAP because inner party democracy is fundamental to expanding nation's democracy.
• Include Grass-roots Workers: AAP must deepen relationships with people having real world grass roots experience like Medha Patkar and Soni Sori as against relying solely on statistics provided by Technical Experts from computers while sitting at home.
• No Populist Measures to Gain Votes: AAP will not indulge in populist measures to create a welfare based vote bank. Welfare measures should be used only in rarest of rare scenarios and not as a standard policy to ameliorate poverty. 
• Genuine Inclusion of Women: AAP continues on the path of supporting strong women candidates based on proven accomplishments rather than their whittled down version to create a facade of support for women. Today, women's representation is not commensurate with their contribution to society.
• Political and Economic Decentralization: Actively supports 73rd and 74th amendment to augment Decentralization Process with specific bills to address shortcomings. 
• Encourage Industry: Takes measures to encourage small and medium scale industries as against creating giant monopolistic corporations. Recent history in western world has shown that such corporations secure capitalist incentives from state to grow and once they are too big to fail, they shamelessly turn to socialist welfare measures to salvage themselves (Multi-Billion Dollar loan from government). 
• Zero Tolerance to Crony Capitalism: Clearly delineate and communicate the difference between crony and pure capitalism. Step up prosecution of crony deals and raise vigorous debate on the floor of the house and at the corner tea stall about the pros and cons of capitalism in Indian context (not in abstract terms) before deciding on a policy.
• Development and Ecology: Revive debate on ecology and its relationship with development. For a country with 25% of world's population, we will have gigantic impact on world's ecology and there is not a single political party raising these environmental debate.
• Energize Radical Viewpoint: Create mechanism within the party to ensure more members of the likes of Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan are nurtured and buoyed by the party rather than sidelined for their seemingly radical views. 
• Transparency in financial dealings: AAP is the only party that voluntarily publishes all donations publicly on web.

Prior Background of Political views:

• Tryst with Nehrus, Gandhis and India's farmers: In my Teens, I had extensively read up on Gandhi, Patel, Nehru and other founding fathers. As a kid, I had an opportunity to interact with farmers, politicians and executives due to my father's role as a Managing Director in a large Milk Cooperative.
• First slice of Congress Vs BJP: I was naturally inclined to Congress party having known its historic contribution and ideological proclivity to secularism and democracy. This was more apparent in the backdrop of Advani's deliberate extremist position to galvanize Hindu vote bank. 
• Moderate voice within extremist party: I found myself modestly accepting BJP's Vajpayee government as it served as a good democratic counterpart to balance the Congress party which could otherwise become smug in its invincibility.
• Sonia Gandhi and her Public Policy: Subsequently, my engagement became more intense and consistent with all strata of Indian society and appreciated Congress's first term (2004-09) for its efforts to spread economic benefits of a global, liberal economy to wider sections of Indian society and mitigate the divide. 
• Successful Policy Vs Poor Governance: Over the course of the second term, as I formed my independent views on each policy, I found Congress increasing fall short on governance, communication and connect with the aspirations of New India. Unabashed arrogance of ministers like Kapil Sibal, Salman Khurshid and Chidambaram was the last nail in the coffin.
• Alternative Paradigm and Future of India: As I rummaged for alternatives, I warmed up to a possible Non-Congress government sans Hindutva-focused ideology. Figures likes Shivraj Chauhan (BJP) and Nitish Kumar (Third Front) represented those feelings. 
• Emergence of AAP: AAP emerged as an alternative to Non-Congress Non-BJP government. Although I generally support Anti-Corruption movement, I hold reservations about the specifics of IAC's Jan Lokpal Bill draft. Having said that, AAP has single handedly changed the political landscape in India and brought hitherto brushed-under-the-carpet issues right into our living rooms. When was the last time we discussed Gas Pricing by the way? For this courage and other dashing moves, I am willing to bet on them and wait a little longer to prove their governance and feasibility.