Abstract

The story of an Indian election campaign from up-close – an intimate ground-up perspective of the anxieties, ambitions, struggles, and intrigues from the electoral battleground.

SYNOPSIS

Delhi, August – December 2013

A new politics of hope and change flickers in the world’s largest democracy, as a rank outsider makes an audacious bid for political power. A tiny new political party prepares to take on the mighty political establishment in the capital city: the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the party of the Common Man. Like its counterparts from Greece to Spain, this anti-establishment party promises to vanquish political corruption and bring power back to ordinary people.

An Ordinary Election tells the extra-ordinary story of the Aam Aadmi Party’s debut election campaign in the constituency of RK Puram, Delhi. From the campaign war room to the streets, from the narrow lanes of urban slums to the manicured parks of upper-class neighbourhoods, the crew follows the charismatic candidate Shazia Ilmi and the ordinary men and women of the AAP fighting to change the terms of Indian democracy in an election campaign where victory seems impossible…