How do you see your own growth over the last three-and-a- half years?
Politics has become a really bad word, and the fact that you are being clubbed with everyone else sometimes frustrates and angers you.
There are people who want to come into the system and make a difference, but we need everyone's support to do that. Otherwise, nothing will happen -- everyone will sit on the fence and criticise.
Secondly, it was a huge learning process because I was completely new to politics. I had worked with my father on a completely different level, never on a political platform.
To be within the system, to understand the system, was a very big task; to understand what limitations there are for you as a Member of Parliament, or on you as part of the political process.
Like Owen said, I have dealt a lot with issues on a local level. The lines between a corporator, an MLA and an MP are very blurry; you're just crossing over most of the time (laughs).
Even today, when I go to campaign, the issues people raise are not national issues, but water, roads, home, gutters.... If I don't address those issues, they will see me as a bad MP. People don't understand that MPs will be in Delhi, working on issues at a national level.
Also see: Machines create loss of jobs: Abu Azmi | India Votes 2009
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