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The barely six-month-old Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) founded by movie star Chiranjeevi has conclusively demonstrated it is not a wee bit different from the Telugu Desam Party and the Congress, which had ruled the State for a quarter of a century and miserably failed to address people’s burning problems, charged Lok Satta Party President Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan here today.

“The PRP is as guilty as the TDP and the Congress in treating the party as a private limited company and politics as a family enterprise”, Dr. JP told a media meet. It conducted a huge jamboree at Rajahmundry like the TDP and the Congress at places like Guntur, Anantapur and Secunderabad at enormous cost, to ferry people by offering inducements. Like its counterparts, the PRP is planning to offer party ticket to only those who could spend Rs.3 crore to Rs.5 crore in an Assembly constituency. The PRP has borrowed most of phrases and expressions popularized by the Lok Satta for over 12 years but they remain empty words because it too subscribed to crass political culture practiced by the other two political parties.

Dr, JP bemoaned that the politics is so vitiated now that dignified middle class citizens and honest entrepreneurs, who deem politics as a noble endeavor, cannot dream of entering politics. The three parties in Andhra Pradesh will deny a party ticket even to a Barack Obama simply because he cannot spend Rs.5 crore of personal money to get elected to the Assembly. Even the concept of social justice stands totally perverted when a party chooses only those candidates who can spend enormous amounts of black money. “It does not matter to which caste a candidate belongs if he is chosen for his ability to swing votes with money and liquor in his/her favor. Despite repeated appeals, none of the three parties had chosen to commit themselves against use of money and liquor in elections, let alone honoring their commitment.

In contrast, Dr. JP recalled, leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Ambedkar, Sardar Patel, Subhash Chandra Bose, Burgula Ramakrishna Rao and Muqdum Mohiuddin did not invest crores of rupees to enter politics. They entered and enriched politics with their education, intellect, passion, commitment, ideas and leadership.

Dr. JP said that notwithstanding the fact there are decent people known for their courage of conviction and perseverance in all parties, political parties by and large have lost their faith in people. “They have come to believe that without buying votes and distributing liquor or exploiting caste, religion and region or offering short-term sops, they cannot come to power.”

The Lok Satta President said that the three central challenges staring the nation in the face are elimination of poverty in five years, empowering and productively employing all young men and women and ameliorating the conditions of millions who are migrating to uraban areas and eking out a precarious livelihood. The three parties – Congress, TDP and PRP – have not understood the grave problems, leave alone addressing them. That nearly 11 lakh young people applied for 840 odd Group IV posts in Andhra Pradesh and that millions of people continue to migrate to urban areas in search of work and livelihood testify to the colossal failure of the Congress and the TDP. “On top of it, in their unbridled lust for power, they have brought down the level of political discourse by indulging in personal mudslinging.”

Dr. JP appealed to all sections of the public to recognize that the future of millions of young people would be ruined and the unity and integrity of the country e at stake if we don’t change the crass, corrupt and self-serving political culture.

Dr. JP described Election 2009 as a fight between parties pursuing crass political culture on the one side and the hapless people on the other. The Lok Satta stands by the people, who are the real sovereigns in a democracy, but stand reduced to mendicants.