The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : `Our participation in polls symbolic'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 04, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

`Our participation in polls symbolic'

Special Correspondent

The party was recently floated by five IITians . "We are not contesting to form a government. We want to tell people we are an alternative."

CHENNAI: The newest and youngest entrant to Tamil Nadu politics, Lok Paritran, on Friday clarified that its participation in the Assembly election was symbolic.

"We are not contesting to form a government. We want to build the party first, reach out to the masses and tell them we are here as an alternative," Tanmay Rajpurohit, president of the party recently floated by five IITians, said, ruling out possibilities of finding allies in established political parties.

Better off on our own

"People perceive all existing parties as corrupt anyway. So we are better off on our own. If you shake hands, you will have to compromise on your ideology and we do not want to do that," he explained.

The party will organise its first public meeting at Ragasudha Hall, Luz, on March 5 at 6 p.m. to call for suitable candidates for the May 8 election, Mr. Rajpurohit announced at the party's first press conference. "The only way to change the system is from the top," the young leader said. "We will lead by example."

Strategy based on candidates

The party will take a week before it hits the campaign trail. "We will formulate a strategy based on the candidates chosen. We are only choosing quality local candidates who understand the problems of their area best. Then, we will come up with an action plan for the campaign," the party president added.

On party ideology, he said it would be a while before abstractions in ideology became specific and at least a week before an election manifesto was drafted.

Short-term goals

"Currently, we have short-term goals of expanding the membership base, taking people out of inaction due to complete loss of hope, outlining a concrete, detailed and pragmatic plan to make India a developed nation, making region-specific plans depending on local parameters, preparing strategies for elections and conducting camps and seminars to bring like-minded people together. Elections are only a part of our plans, not all of it," Mr. Rajpurohit explained.

Details of Lok Paritran and its ideology can be found on www.paritrana.org.

People interested in joining the party may contact Santhanagopalan Vasudev, Chief Advisor, at 93812 02545.

(The party had given a wrong number in its press release on Thursday resulting in a mistake in the story "Young party to contest Assembly elections" published in these columns on Friday.)

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