I always fancied having a young educated political party in India. So, when I first heard about this new party called Lok Paritran I was very excited and have been lapping up any piece of news I get about them, but after the initial excitement they raised, I only feel disappointed at their progress.
They have 7 party candidates contesting in Chennai alone, and from discussions I gathered at least in mylapore forums, the candidate is hardly visible to the public eye. Their policy is to not have astronomical expenditure during their election campaigns in a bid to fight corruption which goes on in getting that kind of money. I can totally agree with that, but without widespread campaigning how will the public know more about them. So far their target and their backing has been the youth of India. But is that enough to win the elections? Also, all the publicity I have seen for them is through links on yahoo messenger or online communities, but how many people from the general public in India have access or use these resources. Baring a few open discussion meets and some press releases I have not come across any other campaigning by them.
A friend of mine attended one of their discussion meets, who said that their representatives were not even able to communicate their vision effectively, and that they were least impressive in their discussions. Also not many people knew that they were even having something like this.
The idea is right, but I feel the implementation is not. Their profiles are impressive and their high education should have told them more about the importance of proper advertising. I think they are jumping in too early, and should take some more time in establishing their identity, get involved more with the people, and demonstrate to them what they intend to do. Campaigning does not need to be done by spending huge sums of money alone, but spending more time with the public and being more visible to it I think would go a long way too.
The elections are on May 8, 2006 and I wish them good luck, and hoping they win, if not for anything else at least for a change.
