AAP Candidate Santosh Nargund from Hubballi Dharwad, Karnataka

Santosh Nargund (pragatihd.in) 

Santosh Nargund, an expert on public leadership and good governance, is not new to city Hubballi Dharwad of Karnataka. In the area, he has done significant work in saving lakes, solid waste to waste to compost conversion, rain water harvesting and chemical free farming. He has also introduced eco-friendly auto rickshaws and mandated the calibration of auto-rickshaws meters. Engineer turned activist Santosh joined Ministry of Defence as a scientist helping in the development of military fighter light combat aircraft - Tejas. 41 year old Santosh is an activist and also an Aam Aadmi Party candidate now from Hubballi Dharwad constituency for upcoming Karnataka assembly elections.

Civic Activism: 

Along with his job as scientist, he started participating in civic activities and turned into a RTI activist. When upon questioning the performance of government, position of Santosh as a government worker himself was jeopardized, he decided to work for private industries after quitting. This way he could continue performing his civic duties. He worked with Wipro, Tata Group and UTC Aerospace. Because of enough engagement in civic activities and with the desire of doing something significant, Santosh quit his last job with UTC around 2 years ago. Since then he is focused around Hubballi Dharwad area and working with locals. He also started his non-profit organization named "Hubballi Dharwad Pragati Sankalp" (http://pragatihd.in/). Being the second largest urban city in Karnataka and in the list of smart cities, lots of funds were allotted for the development of the area but due to corruptions at various levels, planned development never happened. Even if it did saw some execution, the plans ended up very expensive e.g. project allotted for a price of worth 2 crores was completed in 10 crores. Santosh's team struggled for year to get major works done which were supposed to be completed in few days.

Social Audit and PILs: 
Santosh also raised voice when 5000 trees were cut to widen the highway, but no trees were planted in compensation in coming years. According to SC guidelines, if a tree is cut 10 trees should be planted in return. Santosh fought the issue using PILs and RTIs through his NGO and managed to force the department to plant 60,000 tress; in which 25,000 trees were planted in the Hubballi Dharwad area alone. In another case, a social audit of social welfare department was conducted by Santosh prevented a loot of 123 acre of government land valued at 3000 crore rupees. Without such an enthusiasm and activism, this would have never happened.

Opponent and Campaign: 
Santosh is an AAP candidate from Hubballi Dharwad and running against Ex Chief Minister Jagdish Shettar who is also a 5 times MLA. Shettar, who has completed 24 years in office will be contesting for the 6th time from Hubballi Dharwad constituency. According to Santosh, the area is in bad shape than it was 20 years ago, which only means that the condition has become worse in this area under the leadership of elected MLA. Water and garbage problems have become more severe when Santosh visited his town after 20 years.  Santosh and his team are busy in election campaigns for two months now which include door to door campaign, small meetings with local associations and phone calls. They have also placed posters across the constituency and hoardings for visibility. Social media campaign is also performing well with direct engagement from voters from the constituency. Hoardings are placed at 5 strategic spots across the constituency in comparison to 50 hoardings from Shettar. Campaign is organized smartly which also include padyatras and flashmob.

Santosh Nargund election campaign 

What AAP can achieve by contesting on selected seats? 

When asked, as AAP is not contesting on all seats of Karnataka, so what can a bunch of MLAs do even if they win? Santosh replied that the answer to this question can not be binary. Every position and MLA counts. Being a key member of a constituency, MLA can do lots of development for the local area using government development funds and MLA funds. Development work can be monitored such that it is executed without corruption. He continued, that even a couple of people can change the way of proceedings of assembly, which can make a big impact in policy and decision making. And if Karnataka happens to be a hung assembly, AAP will play a very important and key role.

Connect with Santosh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/spnargund
Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/santosh.nargund
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/spnargund/

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