Atishi Marlena

Some Lesser Known Facts About Atishi Marlena

• She was the topper of Delhi University in 2001.

• After her education in Oxford, she was awarded the Rhodes Scholarship^[6]Wikipedia. She later joined the Magdalen College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar in 2005.

• Since her childhood, she has been interested in social work. She participates in a lot of social campaigns and initiatives.

• In 2006 she taught at the Rishi Valley School, Andhra Pradesh. She used to teach English and History.

• In 2006, she moved to Bhopal. There, she got herself involved in organic farming and providing progressive education systems. She had worked with a lot of NGO’s. It was during this period when she met several AAP members including Prashant Bhushan, Manish Sisodia and many more.

• She always had an interest in public policy. She was interested in Anna Hazare’s 2011 Indian Anti-corruption movement. She observed the whole movement as an outsider and later stated that single-issue campaigns were always ineffective.

• She was an advisor to the Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia in the field of education. It helped her gain popularity and she also became an important member of AAP.

  

• AAP announced Atishi’s name as their candidate for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from the East-Delhi Constituency.

  

• While campaigning, she was often accompanied by Manish Sisodia and Swara Bhaskar.

  

• In May 2019, she accused Gautam Gambhir of distributing pamphlets that contained abuses and derogatory remarks about her. In a press conference, as she read out the statements written about her in the pamphlet, she broke down and started crying. Manish Sisodia, who was present with her in the press conference, read the rest of the pamphlet which also named him and Arvind Kejriwal.

• In response to her accusations, Gautam Gambhir sent defamation notices to Atishi, Manish Sisodia and Arvind Kejriwal. He also challenged them to prove that it was Gambhir who had distributed those pamphlets; and if proven guilty, he would quit politics.

• On 17 September 2024, after Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal stepped down from his post, Atishi was announced as the new Chief Minister by the Aam Aadmi Party.

• After taking over the office of the Chief Minister, Atishi announced that she would sit next to Kejriwal’s CM chair and not occupy the seat on which he used to sit in the CMO.

  

• In February 2025, following the announcement of the results of the Delhi Vidhan Sabha elections, Swati Maliwal took to Twitter (now known as X) to criticize Atishi. This came after a video of Atishi dancing in celebration of her victory went viral on the internet, which Swati described as a “shameful act.”