# Adarsh Shastri

Adarsh Shastri (born 16 October 1973) is an Indian politician. He is a former senior official of the Aam Aadmi Party and represented the Delhi assembly constituency of Dwarka.
Shastri left his job as the head of sales at Apple India to join the Aam Aadmi Party, after working in corporate industry at various corporations for 17 years. He is now a social entrepreneur involved in the promotion of education and other social causes.

## Early life

Adarsh Shastri is the son of Anil Shastri, and Manju Shastri, and is married to Monika Shastri. The couple has twin sons. 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 has a master's degree in business administration from Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management. He is the grandson of Lal Bahadur Shastri, his father being the second son of Shastri.

## Career
### Politics

Prior to joining INC, Shastri was looking after overseas organisational affairs as co-convenor of the overseas wing of the Aam Aadmi Party. He is instrumental in building a grassroots base of organisation of AAP.
He contested the 2015 Delhi Legislative Assembly election from Dwarka (Delhi Assembly constituency) and got 79,729 votes out of around 135,000 votes polled, defeating the sitting Member of Legislative Assembly, Pradyumn Rajput of the BJP by the margin of 39,366 votes.
Shastri led Delhi Dialogue along with Ashish Khetan, Meera Sanyal, Preeti Sharma Menon. Delhi Dialogue was a point based initiative of Aam Aadmi Party which aimed to make Delhi a world-class city. which aims to build a realistic and practical plan to achieve the vision. Providing free wifi service to Delhi citizen and bringing government on a web through smart governance were part of Delhi Dialogue.
Extending the concept of 'Delhi Dialogue', the Aam Aadmi Party's government constituted Delhi Dialogue Commission in cabinet meeting of Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi chaired by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday approved the setting up of the nine-member Commission.Which later on prepared a 70-point action plan based on dialogues conducted earlier to implement AAP's vision for governance. Shastri is in charge of ambitious Wifi project and various eGovernance initiatives.
Shastri was instrumental in managing organisational affairs of Aam Aadmi Party and as the State Observer for Himachal Pradesh for Mission Vistaar which is being carried out by Aam Aadmi Party for organisation expansion across the nation with the objective to reach out to the multitude of citizens of this country, who share the ideology of the Aam Aadmi Party and want to play a meaningful role in nation building and to reorganize the organisational units at various levels through a bottom-up democratic process.
Shastri has been the Member of National Manifesto Drafting Committee of Aam Aadmi Party for Loksabha Elections 2014 and was also the Incharge of the Manifesto Drafting Committee & Member of Candidate Selection Committee of Uttar Pradesh Chapter of Aam Aadmi Party in Loksabha Elections 2014. He also contested Parliamentary Elections 2014 from Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh as a candidate of the Aam Aadmi Party.
Shastri left his job as the sales head for Apple, India and joined Aam Aadmi Party led by Arvind Kejriwal an anti-corruption activist turned politician. He did not join his father's party since he felt he would not be able to fit into the Congress.

### Social

He has been a member of the board of governors of Lal Bahadur Shastri Educational Society, established in 1995, which runs institutions including the Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management Delhi, Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management, Indore, and Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management & Technology, Bareilly. Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management, Hyderabad is to be started soon.

### Corporate

Shastri is also the National Secretary of Indian Cellular Association, the apex body of the mobile industry comprising Brand Owners; Technology Providers; Manufacturers; National Distributors; Application, Solution and VAS Providers, Ethical Retailers and eminent Consumers of mobile handsets which has been constituted to provide value and service to the mobile cellular handset industry in India by fuelling its growth, improving competitiveness, helping create a legal and ethical market and regulatory environment, thereby providing long term benefits of mobile connectivity to the Indian masses.
Shastri was recently in news to mediate between traders & handset makers to curb online discounts to online sellers like Amazon.com, Flipkart and Snapdeal by brands such as Samsung, Apple and Nokia when India's more than 1.5 lakh small to medium cell phone retailers have been fighting hard to defend themselves against online sellers who are winning over customers by being able to sell phones and tablets at a discount, thus undercutting the brick-and-mortar trade. As the result of this mediation, Nokia, Motorola & HTC had been reasonably open to the idea of price parity between online and retail channels.

## Alumni and associations

* National Secretary, Indian Cellular Association (ICA)
* Trustee, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Memorial Trust
* Member of Governing Board, Lal Bahadur Shastri Educational Society
* Member of Governing Body, Lal Bahadur Shastri Seva Niketan
* Member, Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM)
* Member, Advisory Cell of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI)
* Member, Advisory Body of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)
* Member, National Geographic Society, USA