Pro-People Governance explained by AAP Karnataka Candidate Prithvi Reddy

AAP Karnataka Candidates

Aam Aadmi Party Karnataka has announced 18 candidates for 2018 Karnataka Assembly elections so far (click here for candidate profiles and stats). Each candidate in this small list is unique. Youngest candidate is 26 years old who just qualified to run for elections is also an lecturer whereas oldest candidate is a PhD who is also a retired IAS officer. Congratulating all the members on Delhi HC judgment on 20 AAP Delhi MLAs, AAP Karnataka convener Prithvi Reddy is confident with this team of 18 candidates. Including Prithvi, the group has candidates from different age group, profession, experience and expertise. Each candidate has been working for the cause of a better India and fighting with the stagnant system through their activism. But this struggle without a proper platform saturates and leads to limited results after a while. If elected as MLA, activism of these candidates will find a new outlet for a better performance and improved results.

In the list of 18 people, Prithvi is AAP Karnataka candidate from Sarvagnanagar constituency. Elaborating profiles of all the candidates, Prithvi did not forget to mention Lingraj Urs, co-founder of multinational IT company Genisys. When Prithvi attended the 2017 India Conference at Harvard University, he was told about Lingraj. After coming back to India, Prithvi got in touch with Lingraj. It turned out that he was previously an Aam Aadmi party member who fought gram panchayat elections in Karnataka. List of selected MLAs also include an auto driver, aerospace scientist, IT professionals, entrepreneurs, businessmen, lawyers, educators and political leaders.

Candidate Selection

AAP Karnataka team has been very cautious in selecting their candidates. It is impossible to form a government with 18 candidates (in a battlefield of 224 seats) unless a party is involved in post-election MLA buying business. In the legislative assembly every member is significant and have the power to bring a change they want in their local constituencies as well as in assembly proceedings. While other parties might select their candidates based on their bank balance and connections, AAP chose their candidates based on their activism profile. At this moment, there might be several people looking forward to join hands with AAP after other parties denied them a ticket. But AAP is not looking for those candidates. Their selection procedure is firm and strictly based on performance. The list of 18 candidates is a proof.

Profile and Activism

A mechanical engineer and business degree holder, Prithvi Reddy worked in manufacturing industry in Europe and then returned to India to take care of his family business. While managing business and a family run school, Prithvi co-founded Swabal, an industry initiative to promote skill development among youths using “Earn while you learn model”. Inspired by Obama campaign in 2008, Prithvi co-founded Smart Vote, a citizen initiative in Bangalore to increase voter turnout. When anti-corruption movement was building up around 2010, Prithvi co-founded a local anti-corruption movement which later evolved into the state chapter of India Against Corruption (IAC) movement. Following the movement, he closely worked with Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal and others. He has been working with AAP since its formation, shaping AAP policies and heading the “Economic Policy” team. Prithvi is also AAP Karnataka State Convenor, Member of AAP National Executive, AAP national spokesperson and in-charge of the funding team.

Passion in Education

Following his passion in education, Prithvi took charge of running the school in Addagal village of Srinivasapura Taluk, Kolar District. The school which is now run by Maralihallige Trust was started by his father in the year 2000 who in turn was inspired by Prithvi’s grandfather. Prithvi turned the village school into a model rural school in Karnataka which is providing quality education to children in and around Addagal village. Prithvi believes that there are multiple solutions to every problem given the intent is genuine. Even though his school can only accommodate upto 450 children, through his engagement with AAP he has been able to scale up the educational reforms. He has been able to influence the education of 16 lac children in Delhi through AAP. If Prithvi wins, it is one of his commitments to establish quality government schools in his constituency even if he has to approach CSR and private companies.

Some photos from school in Addagal run by Maralihallige Trust 

Election Campaign

Karnataka is a launching platform for AAP in the southern states of India. With other elections in queue, 2018 Karnataka assembly election campaign is picking up as Karnataka team has already started door-to-door campaigning and installed posters. People from local constituencies who are also aware about AAP and Delhi Governance are coming forward in support of AAP and joining the campaigns. They are also providing resources like office space, transportation, campaign materials to local teams. While campaigning in his constituency, Prithvi heard from local residents calling AAP as the only ATM, a new abbreviation for Alternative To Modi. Some photos from Prithvi’s campaign are given below.

Some photos from Prithvi Reddy Campaign in Sarvagnanagar  

Economic Zones

While constituency-wise local and state level manifestos are under development, Prithvi elaborated his team plan to develop 5 regional capitals across Karnataka. These regional capitals will reduce the burden on big cities like Bangalore, reduce human migration from smaller cities to metropolitan regions and enforce proper/balanced utilization of natural resources. Regional capitals will be developed as economic growth engines which will bring development to specific regions. These growth engines are needed as some of the big cities are overloaded and collapsing. Other than the area in and around Bangalore, there is no major economic activity in other parts of Karnataka. Creating economic zones will bring jobs to local people in their region instead of moving to bigger places.

Pr-People Governance

Politics in India is very polarized and most of the parties play vote bank politics. Pick any state and the politics in that region is always a mish-mash of religion, caste and creed based ideologies. When it comes to these three things, people (voters) forget about the real issues and completely abandon critical thinking and logical discussions. AAP is changing the dynamics of religion & caste based politics and delivering pro-people governance. Delhi is leading the way. Talking about real issues create a vote bank which includes the entire community instead of just a portion of it by dividing them on the basis of individual beliefs. Because votes are used to conventional politics, they ask during the campaigns “What AAP will do for their community?”. When team explains to them about the real problems related to water, transportation, infrastructure, quality education and healthcare; people realize that “this is what everyone needs”. Any improvement in these basic necessities will improve the overall quality of life of every citizen. When we talk about pro-people governance, it automatically defeats the politics of religion, caste and creed.

You can support pro-people governance by connecting with Prithvi Reddy on twitter @aapkaprithvi and donating online using http://bit.ly/Donate4AAP_Sarvagnanagar 

AAP USA chapter organizes a weekly conference call on every Sunday at noon 12:00PM EST. More details about the call and the guest can be found at @aapchat (https://twitter.com/aapchat).