Lok Satta Party President Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan today appealed to downtrodden sections to plunge into the Lok Satta Party and take the reins of leadership to usher in a new political order.
“The Lok Satta firmly believes that democracy is not real and meaningful if it does not provide for representation to all sections and castes in elected offices. The leadership is not the monopoly of any caste or section. There are men and women of intelligence, competence and integrity among disadvantaged sections -- SCs, STs and BCs. But they simply cannot fight the elections at a time traditional parties are prepared to spend crores of rupees even in an MPTC or ZPTC election, not to mention elections to the Assembly or the Lok Sabha.”
“The new politics that the Lok Satta is promoting has three critical planks – opportunities to all without discrimination on grounds of caste, family and birth; clean and honest politics as a moral endeavor; and fair representation for all.”
Dr. JP said the Lok Satta is prepared to give opportunities to people with leadership qualities from among downtrodden sections to contest elections without looking into their caste or creed or family. “There is no ceiling on the number of candidates the Lok Satta is ready to field so long as they have the leadership mettle.”
Dr. JP was addressing a media conference on the occasion of some of the BC, SC and rationalist leaders joining the Lok Satta.
Dr. JP declared that the Lok Satta’s goal is eradication of caste as a determinant of a child’s future within 10 years. “The pernicious practice of marking a person by birth and subjecting him or her to discrimination and disadvantage must end today and now”, he said.
Dr. JP disclosed that the Lok Satta would take up a campaign for the introduction of proportional representation in place of the present ‘first-past-the-post” system once the 2009 elections are over so that all sections of people can have a say in politics.
Mr. Akurati Muralikrishna, State Convener, BC Forum, said that more than 100 of the 116 backward castes had never stepped into the Assembly portals for the last 60 years, although they account for 65 percent of the State’s population. “Parties chanting the social justice mantra have merely hijacked the portraits of Dr. Ambedkar and Phule but not his ideas. The traditional parties fielded either contractors or businessmen or criminals and rowdies as their candidates in elections while sane people kept off the polling booth out of despair over the state of political affairs. The depressed sections, wiser from their experience, have now come to the conclusion that a solution to their problems lay only in politics, as contended by Dr. Ambedkar. The Lok Satta is the only party that provided them the right platform for the poor by its commitment to build a society in which every one irrespective of one’s birth in a particular caste or religion enjoyed equal opportunities for growth.”
Mr. I. Rama Murthy said that a new breeze is blowing in Andhra Pradesh politics with the weaker sections ready to take on the traditional parties which have cheated them with their vote bank politics, by joining the Lok Satta Party. Mr. Vijaya Singh, Convener, Dalita Bahujana Maha Sabha, said people from weaker sections now have started realizing that the Lok Satta is committed to building an egalitarian society, and its agenda is not limited to fighting corruption..
The following leaders joined the Lok Satta Party today: Messrs
Akurati Muralikrishna, State Convener, BC Forum
Jupally Satyanarayana, State President, Rajaka Sangham
J. Harikrishna, State President, Suryavamsa Sankshema Seva Samiti
Teegala Parthasarathi Prasad, General Secretary, Surya Balija Sangham
Upendra, State Convener, B. C. Yuvajana Forum
Vijaya Singh, Convener, Dalita Bahujana Maha Sabha
Valluru Srinivasa Rao, Upasaka, Bouddha Mahasabha
