Press Releases Archive

The Lok Satta Party and the Backward Classes’ United Front today entered into an electoral alliance and decided to contest on a common symbol.

Announcing this at a media conference, Lok Satta Party President Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan and Mr. P. Ramakrishnaiah, President of the BC United Front, said that the Front would contest from 14 seats.

The Lok Satta President disclosed that his party was also working closely with the Muslim United Front.

Dr. JP said that both the old and the new parties pursuing traditional politics, reciting the social justice mantra, are fielding only candidates who can spend lavishly in elections. There could be real social justice only when every child irrespective of caste, religion and family has equal opportunities for growth, rule of law applies equally to all and when all classes and castes have proportional representation in legislative bodies.

Dr. JP said that the Lok Satta entered into an alliance with the BC United Front because of their shared ideals and objectives. The Lok Satta had offered its hand of friendship to all parties which committed themselves against inducing voters with money and liquor and against turning people into beggars. But none of the parties had made an unequivocal commitment. In contrast, the BC United Front, a party registered in 2004, has come forward to enter into an alliance with the Lok Satta Party because it too believed in proportional representation and opposed to offering inducements to voters.

Dr. JP asserted that a silent revolution fuelled by word of mouth is under way in Andhra Pradesh. The middle classes, youth, and women victims of the liquor menace are today determined to vote for the Lok Satta which alone could usher in new politics.

Mr. Ramakrishnaiah, quoting Dr. Ambedkar, said that the key to rendering social justice lay in acquiring political power. He said that the BC United Front and the Lok Satta Party would win a respectable number of seats in the coming elections. Mr. Jupally Satayanarayana, Vice President of the Lok Satta Party, spoke.

The following are the constituencies and candidates contestent on behalf the BC United Front:

District - Constituency - Candidate

1. Chittoor - Chittoor - Krishna Yadav

2. Chittoor - Kuppam - Chengaiah Lakshmi

3. Anantapur - Kalyanadurgam - Krishnamurthy

4. Anantapur - Uravakonda - Rudrananda

5. Anantapur - Raptadu - G. Sanjeev kumar

6. Kadapa - Mydukur - Gampa Tirupati

7. Kadapa - Badvel - Dr. Danam

8. Kadapa - Proddutur - Paluru Ramakrishnaiah

9. Kurnool - Allagadda -

10. Kurnool - Nandikotkuru -

11. Kurnool - Kodumuru - Sanjeeva Rao

12. Nalgonda - Nagarjuna Sagar - C.H. Mallikarjuna Goud

13. Mahaboobnagar - Shadnagar - K. Venugopal

14. Mahaboobnagar - Maktal - J. Suryanarayana

The Lok Satta Party today faulted the Congress for not coming up with a coherent and integrated policy to combat poverty and unemployment. Reacting to the Congress Party’s 2009 election manifesto, the party said it was significantly silent on mitigating corruption, leave alone eradicating it.

Lok Satta Party spokesmen P. Ravi Maruth and Dr. P. Bhaskara Rao said that the manifesto did not promise free and quality education and health care to all, irrespective of their caste or religion. It was true that nearly 225,000 people had been enabled to undergo surgeries under Rajiv Arogyasri. Advertising this, the Congress sought to conceal the fact that millions of people do not benefit under Arogyasri.

The Lok Satta leaders also pointed out that the Congress Party has not spelt out any strategy to tackle the growing unemployment in the wake of the economic downturn in the country. That more than 11 lakh young men and women applied for 844 Group IV posts in the State mirrored the magnitude of the problem.

Mr. Ravi Maruth and Dr. Bhaskara Rao said the manifesto was silent on tackling corruption, which has become widespread. It had not talked of making agriculture remunerative and warding off suicides by farmers. It publicized loans at three percent to women as revolutionary even as the Government ruined their lives by promoting liquor consumption.