T students to enter electoral politics

HYDERABAD: Telangana students' organisations which have been in the vanguard of statehood cause so far, will now plunge into electoral politics with a new political party.

The proposed party, titled 'Telangana Students' Praja Party', will now jump on 'corruption-free and clean politics' bandwagon that is dominating the political discourse of the country after the stunning victory of Aam Aadmi Party. Students will be at the helm of affairs of the party.

The representatives of various student bodies made a formal announcement in a brief media interaction held here. On January 20, an inaugural public meeting will be held on Osmania University campus and will delineate its policies pertaining to various issues.

The idea is to convert youth power into political power and to usher in a golden Telangana (Bangaru Telangana), said Karate Raju, chairman of Telangana Students' JAC.

''We will not let the established political parties use our (students') selfless sacrifices as palanquins to achieve their interests any more. In fact, this has been the case so far.

We as student groups have considerable exposure to issues plaguing the region due to our participation in Telangana movement and will fight the elections like Assam Gana Parishad that started as student movement and emerged as a major political force,' said the defacto president of the new party.

He informed that the work towards forming the political party has started about six months back and Telangana staff serving in various departments have extended their support.

'About 200 professors serving in various universities in the region and Telangana advocates, NRIs, senior bureaucrats serving in the Central government in Delhi and people from every department have voiced their support. And all of them specific to their departments are contributing in terms of their suggestions to framing policies,' he said.

He added that the representatives of the students' groups have toured Delhi recently and placed a requisition with the Election Commission of India and are awaiting formal registration.

'Besides, we have also interacted with Aam Aadmi party chief Arvind Kejriwal and he expressed his happiness over students forming a political party. He also offered his support for building the party,' he said.

Emphasising that the new party will consider the views of all communities, he said, ''We are confident that Telangana will be a reality before the upcoming elections in 2014. Whether or not the state gets bifurcated we will contest in all 119 assembly constituencies and 17 Parliament seats in the region.'

Further, being aware of the Telangana Praja Samiti experiment by Chenna Reddy that swept the elections in 1971 he said, 'After 1971 elections former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had made sure that Chenna Reddy merge his party with the Congress. We are confident that we will not be entrapped by established political parties.'