Lok Satta to focus on rural areas

Party determined to enhance its vote share, says Jayaprakash Narayan

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The greatest challenge before the party is to turn the support base into votes

Just because I am a lone voice, I am not going to keep silent: Jayaprakash Narayan

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HYDERABAD: Lok Satta Party president Jayaprakash Narayan who will be the lone voice representing his party’s philosophy in the new Legislative Assembly has no illusions that he can transform politics overnight.

“As a legislator, my role may be limited but as a political party we have a formidable task of building up organisational base even in rural areas which we could not do,” Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan said.

Electorally, Lok Satta may be small but it has huge potential support base across the State. The greatest challenge before the party is to turn the support base into votes and give confidence to rural voters that voting for LSP would not invite retribution from others.

To create the interface between the citizens and the State, citizen centres would be established in each constituency to begin with, he told The Hindu.

Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan said as legislator he would have an extra edge to address issues in his constituency and the State. “Just because I am a lone voice, I am not going to keep silent. Lok Satta, as an NGO and political party later, always made itself heard,” he said. His effort would be to bring in policy changes by discussing his ideas and engaging others as Lok Satta does not have enough numbers in the Assembly.

As any people-centric policy would also bring in political dividends for everyone, the talent would be in the art of negotiating. He said with middle class owning Lok Satta, media houses too would eventually give the party its due but the challenge would be to attract good leaders.

Immediate priorities

Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan said his immediate priorities would be to improve basic amenities, drinking water, sewage and provide institutional plan for education and health care if the government was willing and work for empowering people in Kukatpally and replicating it elsewhere.