WITH probably just over two months to go before India’s general election, nothing stands still for long. The big political news in December was the stunning state-election debut of a Delhi-based anti-corruption party, formed only in 2012. The Common Man, or Aam Aadmi, Party led by Arvind Kejriwal came from nowhere to sweep up 28 of the 70 assembly seats in local elections in Delhi. It helped to flatten Congress, which had ruled Delhi for 15 years, and took the shine off other state-election victories by Narendra Modi and the main national opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Since no party won an outright majority in Delhi, none appeared eager to form a government. In the end, Mr Kejriwal agreed to take office with the outside support of Congress legislators. But he did so intending to use it as a platform for more effective national campaigning. On February 14th, just 49 days after he became chief minister, he quit. Perhaps surprisingly, this is widely considered to be evidence of success, not failure. Stunts pulled in his brief time as chief minister have helped to broaden his reputation as a battler for the little guy: he spent a chilly night sleeping on a pavement to protest against poor policing and his demand that the local government in Delhi assume more powers now held at the federal level; last week he began a legal process saying India’s largest private energy company fixed high gas prices in connivance with politicians; and he stormed out of office to protest against the refusal by BJP and Congress to support his plan for an anti-graft institution. For the record, Rahul Gandhi, Congress’s leader and scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty also tries, but fails hopelessly, in his bid to be seen as an outsider. Not everything has gone Mr Kejriwal’s way, but much has.