Adarsh Shastri, former MLA from Dwarka assembly seat of Delhi, is currently a leader of the Congress Party. He won the assembly elections in 2015 on Aam Aadmi Party ticket. The biggest identity of Shastri is that he is the grandson of the country’s former PM Lal Bahadur Shastri. He is a social entrepreneur engaged in promoting education and other social causes. After serving the corporate industry for 17 years, Shastri ji left his job as the Sales Head at Apple India. Whose mission was to transform politics with the values of transparency and honesty enunciated by his grandfather, the second Prime Minister of India, the late Lal Bahadur Shastri.
early life
Adarsh Shastri was born on 16 October 1973. Anil is the son of Shastri and Manju Shastri and is married to Monica Shastri. The couple has twin sons Abhivir and Abhijay. His father was a former Finance Minister in the Government of India and was elected to the 9th Lok Sabha from Varanasi in 1989. Shastri is an alumnus of St. Columba’s School, Delhi and Hindu College, University of Delhi. He holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management. He is the grandson of Lal Bahadur Shastri, his father was Shastri’s second son.
political life
Before joining the Congress, Shastri was looking after the overseas organizational affairs of the Aam Aadmi Party as co-convenor of the overseas wing of the Aam Aadmi Party. He is playing an important role in building the grassroots level base of the organization of Aam Aadmi Party. He contested the 2015 Delhi Assembly election from Dwarka (Delhi Assembly constituency) and received 79,729 votes out of approximately 135,000 votes and defeated sitting BJP MLA Pradyuman Rajput by a margin of 39,366 votes.
Shastri led Delhi Dialogue with Ashish Khaitan, Mira Sanyal, Preeti Sharma Menon. Delhi Dialogue was a point based initiative of the Aam Aadmi Party aimed at making Delhi a world class city. The objective of which is to create realistic and practical plans to achieve the vision. Providing free WiFi service to the citizens of Delhi and bringing the government on the web through smart governance were part of the Delhi Dialogue.
Taking forward the concept of ‘Delhi Dialogue’, the Aam Aadmi Party government formed the Delhi Dialogue Commission. The formation of a nine-member commission was approved in the cabinet meeting of the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi chaired by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Which later prepared a 70-point action plan based on earlier dialogues to implement AAP’s vision for governance. Shastri is in charge of the ambitious WiFi project and various e-governance initiatives.
He also contested the parliamentary elections 2014 from Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh as an Aam Aadmi Party candidate. Shastri left his job as sales head at Apple India and joined the Aam Aadmi Party led by anti-corruption activist-turned-politician Arvind Kejriwal. He did not join his father’s party because he felt that he would not be able to fit in the Congress.
professional life
Shastri is known in the industry for his humble manner and strong focus on building lasting relationships with partners. Shastri has over 17 years of extensive work experience in sales, marketing, key account management, business development and strategy in the telecom and retail industry both in India and abroad. They have been involved in the growth of the mobile and retail industry in India and like any industry in its nascent stage they have been at the forefront in pioneering new sales and distribution paradigms and articulating retail and channel development processes.
Shastri was recently in the news for mediating between traders and handset makers to curb online discounting by brands like Samsung, Apple and Nokia to online sellers like Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal, when India’s over 1.5 lakh small And medium cell phone retailers were fighting hard to defend themselves against online sellers, who are winning customers by selling phones and tablets at discounts, thus breaking the brick-and-mortar are reducing business. As a result of this arbitrage, Nokia, Motorola and HTC were reasonably open to the idea of price parity between online and retail channels.
