CHENNAI: A bunch of youngsters, armed with IIT degrees have decided to say no to lucrative jobs and take the plunge into politics. Lok Paritran, their party founded on November 18, 2005, will be contesting the ensuing Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Pondicherry.
Tanmay Rajpurohit, who has a BTech from IIT, Mumbai, an MS in aerospace engineering from Georgia Tech, Atlanta and an MA in economics from the New York University, is the president of the party.
“Two-and-a-half years ago, a few of us got together to check the degeneration of society. We encountered political problems at every level. We could either abandon our goal or enter politics. We decided on the latter,” he says. The Election Commission gave recognition to Lok Paritan on February 24, 2006.
Lok Paritran has 600 registered members, a majority of them former students of IIT. Lok Paritran has lofty plans of exterminating corruption, overhauling the education system, reorienting political organisation and adopting a practical foreign policy. “Our attempt is to bring about a fundamental change in the system, which is riddled with corruption and inefficiencies,” says Rajpurohit.
Rajpurohit says the party is still in the process of formulating a manifesto by studying the local problems. “We started thinking about mainstream politics only four months ago and are still doing the groundwork,” he adds.
Although there are hardly two months left before the elections, the party members are not worried. “We have started inviting applications from prospective candidates and are getting inquiries from a large number of people. We will depend on donations for campaigning and publicity expenses,” says Rajpurohit.
Adds Lok Paritran chief advisor, Santhanagopalan Vasudev, a PhD in economics from New York University: “Our first goal is to increase awareness in the people, shake them from the state of inaction and presenting before them the definite possibility of change.”
