This is my first post at the mutiny. I must say it feels good to be part of the initiative. This post is basically two of my posts combined that I had posted on my personal blog. Here are the posts 1 and 2.

 

Post 1

Bharat Punarnirman Dal is a political party started by a bunch of IITians. Now they are planning to fight the upcoming Uttaranchal, UP and Punjab elections.

Young men like Ravi Kishore and Ajit Shukla – who both studied aerospace engineering at IIT Mumbai – are now hoping to engineer a social change through their party, the Bharat Punarnirman Dal (BPD).

Mainstream politics, dominated by money and muscle power can be a scary place to be for the educated middle class, but these young IITians are changing all that.

Says BPD spokesperson , Ravi Kishore, “The time has come when we stopped talking and instead start acting. We are creating a platform for people who want to make a change now and we have come here to deliver that change.”

These young men don’t have a fixed ideology, money or cadre to call their own.

They say all they have is integrity and big plans for the country – plans to hire people who will be solution providers, make sure the administration is clean and most importantly, retire politicians at the age of 60.

Says BPD President, Ajit Shukla, “It’s not about the money. Everyone has to begin somewhere. People will ultimately follow you if you have the conviction.”

And it’s on this belief that they are fighting the upcoming Uttaranchal, UP and Punjab elections.

I always wanted that a new party should be formed by intellectuals to take on the big political parties of today. The existing parties have very little good to offer to the nation and whatever they do have to offer comes only after their own benefit is taken care of. Politics first and nation later.

I hope BPD might be able to make a difference. If they are successful in only a couple of states then it might encourage the educated sensible youth to take up politics. If they start the process right and guard their integrity well and still achieve success it will be beginning of a new era in Indian politics.

Their attitude seems to be that of a corporation and they want to run their party as that. It is good that they want to retire politicians after 60. I would think that it would be a retirement only from active politics but they could still be part of the think tanks.

Now only time will tell if the IITians can make good politicians or not. I think it might be interesting to keep an eye on them. If they do what they say they will do I think we all should support them for that.

 

Post 2

When I first wrote about BPD I didn’t think that there will be such positive response to the initiative by ex IITians. Lot of you asked me about the contact information and one commentator (Mr. Suresh gangawar) had been kind enough to leave Mr Ajit Shukla’s phone number. I called just to check whether it was the right number and indeed it was. I spoke with Mr. Ajit Shukla for 15-20 minutes and told him about the response on this blog. He was very happy just to receive a phone call from New York and said it was morale boosting.

BPD will soon make their website public and then anybody who wishes to contact them can do so there. In the meantime I have Mr. Ajit Shukla’s email address. Anyone who wants it leave a comment and I will send you that since Mr. Shukla asked me not to publish it on the blog. I will send the email address to those who have already asked for it.

Mr. Shukla was in Dehradun Uttranchal when I spoke with him and is pretty busy with his campaign. He himslef is contesting UP election from Lucknow. He will be a busy man for the next few months so all of you eager to write to him keep in mind that he might not respond to all of you. Eventually he might but not right away.

I hope to see more from BPD and wish they will publish their ideas and plans on the website which is due for a launch in couple of days.

We Wish them Best of luck.