Mayank Gandhi

Mayank Gandhi
Personal details
Political party	Aam Aadmi Party
Education	BSE, Management
Occupation	Social Activist and politician

Mayank Gandhi is a social activist from India. He was previously a member of the core committee in the India Against Corruption movement, and a National Executive member of the Aam Aadmi Party.

His education qualification is of Engineering and Management from Mumbai. Mayank Gandhi has a longstanding activism experience.

Activism and political career

He was involved with the Lok Satta and to the movement for around two years from 2005-2006, then left it in 2007 because of what he termed "petty internal politics, which I didn't like." He campaigned on behalf of Hansel D’Souza in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, as founder and leader of Jagruk Nagrik Manch (JNM), the organisation that had nominated D'Souza for the contest. JNM had been created as a Mumbai citizens' voluntary organisation in 2008 with the intent of making the political system more accountable and it had among its supporters various non-governmental organisations (NGO) as well as Lok Satta. Gandhi said at that time that the usual responses by concerned groups to challenging situations, such as lists of demands, were "knee-jerk reactions. We need a sustained movement for a better system and work on political intervention, if need be."

Around 2011, he became a part of the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement and a member of its 24-person "core committee", which was officially the full extent of the movement in a formal organisational sense. JNM then became embroiled in a row with other IAC activists after being perceived to let down the movement by failing properly to organise a fast in Mumbai that was being undertaken by Anna Hazare as part of the 2011 anti-corruption protests. There were claims that Gandhi's role included being an intermediary between JNM and IAC. As had happened in 2007, Gandhi found himself unable to continue just as the movement was evolving into a political party. In this instance, his decision was because of allegations of tax evasion that had been laid against him by a colleague in the IAC, Viren Shah. He said that he could not understand the basis of the allegations and that Shah had not responded to his requests for more information.

Gandhi was once secretary of the Remaking of Mumbai Federation (RoMF) and continues as an independent consultant for strategic planning of infrastructure projects. He was a member of the advisory group of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat between 2007-2013 and has been officially representing India in that organisation since 2010.

Gandhi served as a member of the National Executive of the Aam Aadmi Party until 2015. He also served as the party's head in Maharashtra, before his unit was disbanded by Aam Admi Party because of differences with the party chief Arvind Kejriwal.

Gandhi accused Kejriwal of deviating from the path of honest politics, and of "using and throwing" party volunteers. In 2015, he resigned from the party's National Executive, stating that he had been losing interest in politics.