In order to highlight what he believed to be the wrongdoings that took place in the Aam Aadmi Party, Dr Munish Raizada came up with the idea of a web series.
New Delhi: A former member of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has come up with a web series, which claims that the party has strayed from its principles. Dr Munish Raizada, a medical practitioner from Chandigarh living in Chicago, produced and directed the web series titled ‘Transparency: Pardarshita’ in the political genre.
It gives an “insider’s view” of how things went from being transparent and bringing in a systemic change to being nontransparent and becoming part of the same political scenario.
It was finished in October 2020 and released on an OTT platform, where it received positive reviews from viewers, said Raizada.
“However, as the platform was not promoting it saying it is a political series, I thought about how I can take it to a larger audience and then thought of YouTube,” Raizada told news agency IANS.
The web series was released on YouTube on January 17.
After taking a sabbatical from practicing medicine in Chicago, Raizada joined the AAP in 2013 as a volunteer.
As per Raizada, he remained with the party until its victory in the Delhi Assembly Elections in 2015, and he even worked in the government for a few months. In the aftermath of the issue of “lack of transparency” in donations ahead of the 2020 election, he started raising voice against the party.
AAP has emerged as one of the main contenders in Punjab’s political arena and recently announced Bhagwant Singh Maan as its CM candidate. During a recent tour of Punjab, Raizada held a press conference in Chandigarh where he declared the party had “systematically deviated from the principles.
“Remember they came promising vyavastha parivartan (systemic change). But now they have totally changed,” said Raizada as he recounted the events during which he raised his voice in opposition to the “non-transparent” way donation collection was being handled.
Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, who were former members of AAP, raised their voices about these things as well, and were later thrown out of the party.
The idea of a web series came to Raizada’s mind to highlight what he claims are the acts of “wrongdoing” that took place in the party. However, Raizada was not able to complete it in time for the February 2020 election in Delhi, so only a theme song and a trailer were released.
“If you look at it, Kejriwal is still doing the same thing. After gathering large donations in a non-transparent manner, he is still saying, ‘I will break piggy banks of children to collect funds for getting work done’. Therefore, I thought, people need to know the truth,” he said when asked why the web series was posted on YouTube now.
Several people who were disappointed with Kejriwal’s “deviation” from his promises when his party was formed in 2012 are interviewed in the web series. The long list includes Kumar Vishwas, Yogendra Yadav, Mayank Gandhi, Shazia Ilmi, Shivendra Chauhan, and volunteers.
A song from the six-part web series called ‘Kitna Chanda Jeb Mein Aaya’ (sung by Udit Narayan, composed by Pravesh Malik, and lyrics by Annu Rizvi) became an instant hit, capturing people’s attention on social media in particular.
Following the February 2020 polls, when he completed the series, Raizada returned to Chicago and resumed his practice.
