Building a Lok Satta Party for India - Reflections of a new Member

The ball gets rolling…

It all started during the post lunch session of the working committee meeting mid-April when I casually requested Mr. Surendra Srivastava (National General Secretary & Maharashtra State President, LSP) to share with us the election strategy deployed by LSP in Karnataka Assembly elections, and about our lead candidates like Dr. Ashwin Mahesh, Dr. Meenakshi Bharath, and Shanthala Damle. Spontaneously, he suggested that a few volunteers from LSP Maharashtra go to Karnataka and see things for themselves. We had 2 major goals for the trip:

1.        Meet all members from the Karnataka LSP central team & all candidates.
2.        Be campaign volunteers, and get first-hand experience running a campaign.

Participants: Anita Warwatkar, Shraddha Ipte, and Sudhir Shetty (27^th April & 3^rd May 2013). Parag Thakur joined us on 1^st May.

The Bangalore Experience

Srinivas Alavilli, a very dynamic leader from the Karnataka Central team, coordinated our stay at Gokul & Aaradhana Janga’s home (Dr. Ashwin Mahesh’s Campaign manager) in Bannergatta and our visits to all major constituencies in Bangalore.

On 27^th April we joined the Campaign Van led rally in Bomanhalli (Dr.Ashwin’s constituency), which was also joined by Dr. Jayprakash Narayan (Founder and National President, LSP) along with Ravikrishna Reddy (another candidate from BTM layout). Both the constituencies have significant Telugu population and Dr. JP’s presence did galvanise the public. The rally was along the 20 km long stretch and had more than 100 LSP volunteers distributing fliers and zero rupee notes. It is worth mentioning that majority of the LSP supporters are well educated and committed to the party ideology & also ardent supporters of the candidate. I was deeply touched to see the confidence with which each volunteer approached a strange voter and the body language communicating clearly that they knew why exactly the LSP candidate deserves to win in the elections. In sharp contrast to this, the rallies from BJP or Congress (which were rarely seen to begin with) had to offer only noise on the loudspeakers, fliers full of photographs – no message & supporters who sometimes (when teasingly questioned by us) could not even name the candidate they were aggressively campaigning for!! There was a report in HINDU on 30^th April of one rich rival candidate assuring the media that this time he will not buy the VOTES!!

On 28^th April we joined Dr. Ashwin’s in the door to door campaign, and also attended the meetings held by him with members of big apartment complexes. Bommanhalli, a constituency of 3.5 lakh citizens, has a good mix of Urban educated & slum population. With 9 wards, it is the biggest of Bangalore’s assembly constituencies. Therefore, encouraging apartment dwellers to come out was considered to be a big game changer.

Later in the day, we were introduced to other members of the LSP Karnataka central team (Anand, Shridhar, etc) by Srinivas. They discussed, how in a short span of time, 24 candidates from all over the state where reached, interviewed & shortlisted. The approach was to go to different regions, arrange for press release, and encourage individuals committed to good governance & public service to come forward. Srinivas agreed that LSP in Bangalore needs sustained efforts towards good governance and feels that eventually it is on the strength of the some full time volunteers that it can become a real force to reckon with in Karnataka. I also shared with him our observation that in almost all constituencies we campaigned, one thing seemed common: most of the supporters were primarily participating for reasons of personal loyalty for the candidate. The possible outcome of this would be drastic decline in participation after elections.

On 29^th April we campaigned in Shanthala Damle’s constituency along with her supporters in all the residential areas. She has been campaigning on a sustained basis since last August and commands a lot of respect among her supporters and especially women in the constituency.

On 30^th April, in the first half, we met Shridhar Pebbisetty from Hebbal constituency and discussed with him the challenges faced by him considering that he started off his campaign only 45 days ago after persuasion by Dr. JP.  In the second half we visited Dr. Meenakshi Bharath’s constituency, Malleshwaram, and campaigned with her in the busy market area. We were amazed to see the kind of reception she got from the people wherever she went and we also learnt about her initiatives for the protection & betterment of the small businessmen.

The Hyderabad Experience

Once we had covered sufficient ground in Bangalore assembly elections we decided to make a short visit to LSP Headquarters, Hyderabad. We shared our intent with Mr. Karthik Chandra at Hyderabad and clarified the purpose of the visit i.e. to get oriented with the Party headquarters where this noble initiative for good politics was initiated by the founder Dr. Jayprakash Narayan, understand the way things function there, and share experiences with each other to accelerate learning. Moreover we also believe that all members, new & old alike should actively interact on a regular basis, to promote a feeling of camaraderie.

We were delighted to receive the email from him with the detailed schedule of our meetings with all the important wing representations in Hyderabad with M/s Nisar Fatima as the main coordinator for the two days we spent there. On our arrival on 2nd may we found our accommodation was arranged in a comfortable hotel near Lakdi Ka Pul.

The day began with meeting Shri DVVS Varma (LSP AP Vice-President) and Shri Laxman Balaji who gave us an overview of the organisation structure and their functions in brief. We were told about how these wings were slowly groomed by the volunteers since the beginning when Lok Satta was just an aandolan. Mr. Balaji especially was very cheerful, enthusiastic & patient with our marathon questions.  Later in the day we were pleasantly surprised to hear that Dr. JP was in Hyderabad and was going to be able to meet us. The meeting with him was very inspiring and also memorable as we had never expected it in the first place!! He asked us about our analysis of the election campaign in Karnataka especially in Bangalore to which we gave our modest opinion. Then the discussion moved towards LSP efforts in Maharashtra especially Adhale village (which is considered to be LSP’s first footprint in rural areas). We informed him about the micro-planning exercise conducted there and also the follow up action plan. He suggested that it is a good strategy to try to spread LSP footprint in urban & rural areas simultaneously since we can never be sure which will bear fruits first. In the end he appreciated our visit and suggested that such engagement visits should be frequently planned between different LSP state teams.

Then we had a healthy discussion with Mr. Karthik Chandra & M/s Padma Bhupatiraju regarding various training and capacity building activities that they offer. Both agreed that once a new member joins, he/she needs to be oriented immediately with a training program to empower him to become a leader. With this in mind he has assured us that he can arrange for a 4 Day deep training program for LSP Maharashtra within a month if we so desire. It is very kind of him to share with us all the training materials beforehand.  He encouraged us to elaborately discuss with the youth team of Andhra Pradesh.

We also had a fruitful discussion with Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation team (GHMC) team whose expertise was in solving urban issues, the Mahila Satta Head M/s Saroj, and the leader of the Sarvajan wing whose inputs were very valuable.

Later in the day we met the youth leaders of Andhra Pradesh LSP, and the discussion was by far the most elaborate and fruitful one. The gist of it is given below:

Participants:

Srikant Chintala

Hanumanth Rao

Parnandi

Sambi Reddy Bontu

Bhavani Pericharla

P.V. Rao

Ramesh Raju

The above mentioned leaders introduced themselves to the team with their background, academic qualifications, aspirations relating to the politics, contributions to the party etc. They addressed questions about how do they manage personal life / financial plans / what do they do for a living etc. The team was of the opinion that the full time volunteers be given at least a minimal amount of money (or a portion of raised funds) so that they do not depend on “Income on Politics”. We exchanged contact details with the team to continue exchange ideas, and various activities.

They answered several questions about organizational challenges, fund raising, building memberships, publicizing work, etc. They highlighted following points as the key factors in building a strong Organization:

·       We need to explain the following to the people when we seek their membership: To run a political party, we need funds. Political parties / Politics should be owned by the public, but not by a few families or funders! Hence, we should raise money from the society in terms of collecting membership fee, donations (with tax exemptions), dedicated fund raising programs etc. Only when people fund the party, it becomes “Public property” if not, it’s just like any other family business.

·       Utilization of time of the volunteers and their specific skills should be given much attention. We have to be clear on what we are fighting for & how we are fighting. Without having clarity on this, there is no way that we could walk towards the success of our ideology.

·       Organize “Ideological Camps” for the leaders. “Train the Trainers” program should be held.

·       Invite new leadership and assign them with activities. Giving local leadership will play a role in keeping them with an ideological commitment.

·       LSP Andhra has 9 office bearer posts at all levels plus 27 other posts on the name of “associated wings – Sarvajana Satta, Yuva Satta, Mahila Satta”. So, in all 40+ posts. All you need is leaders to take the responsibilities!

·       Change starts at home so enrol your families, friends etc., and keep continuing membership drives as an all-time program.

·       You should also grab attention of the Media; every activity should be informed to the local and state level media. Even if they do not publish, your responsibility is to inform them and put in efforts.

·       In any constituency, to have a reasonable chance of success, we should have at least 4 members per polling station.

·       We should know the voters first to ask them to vote! Have the voters list ready, cascade them into suitable segments – this will make an easy reach.

·       Work on public issues but be careful; few individual issues may kill your time for years! Instead, train the people on how to fight. You be behind them! They will become your voter.

·       Do not organize any event without having a political agenda. Whatever you do, make sure the “LOKSATTA” ambience is created there. Work in “Reverse Strategy” – target oriented.

Hope fellow readers find these insights useful.

Thanks

Sudhir

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
About the Author:

This blog post is authored by Sudhir Shetty with inputs from fellow members Parag Thakur, Anita Warwatkar and Shraddha Ipte who travelled together to Bangalore and Hyderabad to gain experience of Lok Satta's Bangalore election campaign between April 27 - May 3, 2013

Sudhir joined Lok Satta Maharashtra in early 2013. Sudhir comes from a middle class family in Mumbai, has a background in banking and finance. He left his job and committed himself to public service and has worked with colleges as well as Patanjali Yogpeeth. He is now a committed volunteer with Lok Satta.