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When the Davids take on the Goliaths

They have idealism in their eyes and confidence in their walk. SUDHISH KAMATH meets members of Lok Paritran, a party formed by IITians

PHOTO: SHAJU JOHN

You maybe forgiven for thinking they walked out of a movie like Rang De Basanti or Yuva. With untamed idealism in their eyes, raw enthusiasm in their walk and unadulterated passion in their heart, they are all set to take on political bigwigs.

MetroPlus met up with a promising bunch of young, unassuming politicians in jeans and khadi — the pack from Lok Paritran, a party formed by IITians that is making its political debut in the Assembly polls next month.

What honestly do you think are your chances?

Santhanagopal Vasudev (Mylapore contestant): It is tough to speculate about the chances at the moment. But all I can say is there is a chance of winning.

Tanmay Rajpurohit (national president): There is a non-zero probability.

How did you decide to fight in these constituencies?

Gopal: These are constituencies where people are disgruntled with the existing system. There's been a significant drop in areas such as Chepauk and Mylapore.

Tanmay: There's been an 18 per cent to 20 per cent drop. In Mylapore, last election the voter turnout fell from 59.4 (in 1996) to 41.6 and in Chepauk, the voter turnout fell from 58 per cent to 42 per cent. So for people who do not vote, it doesn't matter whether A wins or B wins. They think why stand in the queue when their vote is not going to make any difference.

Srikant Chakravarti (advocate, party member): If only 40 per cent of the people vote, and if 38 to 40 per cent of those votes go to the winning candidate, it means that the chosen candidate has got votes from only 15 per cent of the total population. How is this democracy?

Tanmay: To promote democracy, we have to make sure more people come out to vote. If they don't find an alternative, they don't go to vote. The people who do not vote are our vote bank. All we need to do is disseminate information that an alternative exists.

Srikant: Most parties are comfortable with the support they are getting from the vote bank. By asking people to vote, we are trying to create a truer democracy.

Gopal: Ours is a `swing' State where people swing from one party to another. Basically, they are disgruntled with what is there. So they keep switching over.

What are you promising people?

Gopal: What we promise is good governance, transparency, accessibility and freedom from corruption, which we think are basic. We don't have a clean delivery system. The implementation is not efficient, there's too much of leakage of resources.

What we don't like is to make short-term promises that do not have any kind of long-term relevance in policy making. We don't want to give specific things targeted at a certain audience to garner their support in the short term. When we get the power, we will implement policies that will benefit the State in the long run and in a sustained manner.

What we want to see immediately is that certain basic procedures become simpler. Getting a ration card, a driver's licence, school admissions, things like this... bureaucracy, red-tapism and corruption are the only reasons things don't happen smoothly.

Are you not worried about taking on the political biggies?

Gopal: What we feel is that by expressing ourselves the way we are, we see no reason to take on competition. What we are offering is precisely what we are. We think we are the best alternative.

Elanthirumaran, you are taking on the DMK chief in Chepauk. He's never lost an election there. How much of political experience do you have?

Elan: I once contested the Secretary elections at Larsen & Toubro when I was working there. But that's the only experience I have. We feel we are about to learn and gain. This is our first step. You don't need any experience to take a first step.

Gopal: Experienced people are usually caught in the mire of the existing system. Every step they take, takes them deeper. So we want to step out of that vicious cycle.

How do you intend taking the biggies on?

Elan: We have volunteers from IT industries, mostly youngsters and students. We don't criticise what they are doing or what they have not done. We are only going to tell them what we can do and what we are going to do.

What are you bringing into politics from the IIT experience?

Tanmay: In this process of getting to power, our technical knowledge is not going to be of much use. We know certain things will help once we come to power. Like we know that there is enough Thorium in Kerala to provide power supply for years together. If we focus on technology, there is enough in our country to make us an industrial super power. Like they say, knowledge is a burden if we don't use it.

Gopal: One, clarity in thinking — we tend to develop reasoning and logic because of the inputs we've gained. Two, we know the value of merit. We understand the value of experts. Third, we have an enhanced sense of possibilities. This is crucial. Understanding is the understanding of possibilities. Progress is always made on the sense of possibilities. That, you can go in newer ways than people have gone before. That, you can use what's existing to do things not done before.

Shukla (national treasurer): And as far as our intent is concerned, degrees have no role. This could have happened anywhere. It's only incidental that this has happened through us.

What are the resources you have for this election?

Tanmay: We have about 2,000 volunteers and 750 members. There are 1,116 streets in Mylapore. If we allot 10 streets for groups of two, we can easily cover it pretty soon.

Finally, the question everyone wants to ask. Were you inspired by the movies "Yuva" and "Rang De Basanti"?

(There's a roar of laughter)

Gopal: I haven't seen them. I saw a part of RDB. I felt it's badly conceived, badly implemented. Obviously, movie directors and story-writers are not politicians. Let's hope we are not inspired by them. Or you won't see us around next year.

Tanmay: Forming a political party and running the show is not a one-man job. You can't see a movie and then go float a party.

Elan: A movie is only 150 minutes. Implementing it requires commitment, courage and sacrifice.

Srikant: If these movies inspire more people to join us, we are really happy to have them.

Tanmay: Let there be more RDBs and more Yuvas.

The contestants

Santhanagopal Vasdev

Mylapore

M.A Economics from New York

University

P. Elanthirumaran (38)

Chepauk

Project Manager/Software

Consultant.

Ishrayel Maheswar (32)

Thousand Lights

MBA, M.Phil

Prashant Sharma (48)

Egmore

Marketing Professional

Arvind Tiruvaiyar (32)

T.Nagar

Marketing/Social Worker

Rajamani (56)

Annanagar

A senior consulting engineer,

worked abroad for 25 years

Hariharan (28)

Saidapet

Software Engineer

Rabindara Ganesh (61)

Park Town

Social worker

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