The Bahujan Azad Party (BAP), floated by 50 IITians and their associates in December 2017, on Wednesday announced that it would contest on about 100 seats across nine States in the coming Lok Sabha elections.
The Election Commission has allotted “Slate” symbol to the party.
“BAP is going to contest the Lok Sabha elections in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Maharashtra, Telangana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir on about 100 seats,” said party president Navin Kumar, an IIT (Delhi) pass-out.
“The party is gradually growing to realise the meaning of Bahujan and now it has become an inclusive and unique party for all progressive citizen, mainly the youth, farmers, workers and businessmen, with a dream to contribute in nation building for which Bhahujan Azad Party stands,” he said.
‘Enterprising house’
Mr. Kumar said the party is now ready to “realise our dream for a developed and progressive India”, alleging that almost every existing political parties, which claimed to espouse the same cause, were running like an enterprising house and were “killing the Constitutional spirit”.
“Till today no parties have done anything concrete to realise the dreams of our masses (Bahujan), so we came forward to weed out the culture of subordination, money power, muscle power and violence that has became accepted part and parcel of Indian politics,” said Mr. Kumar.
1 job for each household
Spelling out the party’s agenda, Mr. Kumar said its main issues in the coming election would be employment for all, equal education for all, better and free health facilities, reviving the backbone of national economy via revolutionary change in agriculture, industry and manufacturing sector. He said the party was committed to realise the vision of social democracy, stating that the goal was to provide at least “one job to every household”.
Among those present were party leaders Sarkar Akhilesh, who graduated from IIT (Kharagpur) in 2014; Sumeet Kumar Jatav, also an IIT graduate from Kharagpur in 2014; and Anand Kumar Maurya, an IIT (Delhi) graduate of 2006 batch who ran a start-up in Bangkok and has now come back to “serve the marginalised”.
Amit, who graduated from IISc (Banglore) in 2015; Komal, who did her MBBS from KGMC-Lucknow; and Akshara, a pass-out from U.I.T-Uttrakhand; and Parshant Kumar Parmanu, a Hindu College alumnus, have also joined the party.
Professor Arun Kumar Chaudhary, who was part of the movement led by late Kanshi Ram for 27 years, is the party’s mentor. At the press conference, he said BAP was led by young and educated leaders who had the potential to make India a “Sone ki chidiya (golden bird)” once again.
Ashok Arora, senior lawyer and former Secretary of the Supreme Court Bar Association, is the Bahujan Azad Party’s legal advisor.
