IIT-IIM party to contest 40 LS seats

Better known for snagging high-paying jobs with global corporations than for political activism, alumni of two of India's renowned educational institutions, the Indian Institutes of Management and the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIMs and IITs) plan to contest 40 seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections under the banner of the Bharatiya Punarnirman Dal (BPD), the alumnae of the two institutes said in Lucknow.

Formed in December 2006, the BPD unsuccessfully contested five seats in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections in 2007, managing to get just 1.5-2 per cent of the total votes.

Undeterred, the 'party of professionals' has already finalised eight candidates for the Lok Sabha. ''Bharat Punarnirman Dal will contest from at least 20 seats in Uttar Pradesh and 40 seats across the country on the issues of good governance, restoration of ethics in politics and opposition to caste-based reservation,'' party president Ajit Ashwalayan Shukla said.

Shukla, who has an MTech degree from IIT Mumbai, said Ravishanker Bharat, a chartered accountant, will contest from Lucknow. The party has also finalised candidates for Kanpur, Ghaziabad, Varanasi, East Delhi, South Delhi, Hyderabad and Bhubaneswar, he added.

The BPD is also hoping to rope in actor Aamir Khan as the star campaigner. The party has sent an e-mail to Khan requesting his support to the party. The move comes following a recent entry by Khan on his blog stressing the need for involvement of educated and talented youth in politics.

The BPD's state president and IIT-Kanpur alumnus Omendra Bharat said, ''The importance of star campaigners cannot be ignored, and we want a celebrity campaigner who is dedicated to the country.'' Bharat, who is contesting the elections from Kanpur, said there is no better celebrity than Khan to take up the campaign for the party.

The party was founded by a group of IITians, doctors and professionals to attract educated people towards politics and eradicate corruption. Since its inception, it has organised many campaigns in different parts of the country to promote education in slum areas.

The party's nascent website says, ''Bharat Punarnirman Dal was founded with a belief that qualitative improvement at the topmost level will be reflected throughout the structure that lies beneath them. Thus this political organisation is an attempt to fundamentally reform the political system, which produces the top level managers – the politicians - by introducing quality and dynamism so that the country is run by politicians by choice, not by chance or birth.''

It adds, ''After years of study and hands-on experience at the grassroots level it became clear to the group that without reforming the political system any attempt to reform the society or its governance will be futile. Soon it became clear that the problem is not the lack of resources but their inefficient management.

''In order to get a lasting and widespread solution, instead of trying to solve the problems and issues themselves it is better to improve the problem-solving mechanism. This mechanism is already there and has sufficient reach and resources, but because of inefficiencies at every level of this system it has become ineffective.''

It further says, ''Unfortunately politics figures nowhere when it comes to choosing a career option. The talent pool of the country opts for other careers, and thus always remains subservient, as far as policy making is concerned, to the political dispensation, which ultimately is chosen by those who have nothing else to choose.''