Develop killer instinct, Dr. JP tells party workers

Lok Satta Party President Dr.Jayaprakash Narayan told party activists today that they had to develop the killer instinct and not depend solely on the party’s image to win in elections.

Addressing a meeting of party people who contested the 2009 elections, Dr. JP recalled that although most of them were new to politics and elections they had put up a creditable performance in the face of the traditional parties’ bid to induce voters with money and liquor and the vicious propaganda that a vote to the Lok Satta would be a wasted vote. “But you don’t win an election simply by being good and sincere. You have to live amidst people, fight for their causes and provide competent leadership to convert their good will into votes.”

The party leadership today began a three-day detailed review of its performance in the 2009 elections. The contestants, divided into three batches, are giving their feedback. Party spokesmen Katari Srinivasa Rao and P. Ravi Maruth briefed the media on the first day’s deliberations,

In his address, Dr. JP said that the party had reached most people in the State going by the fact that it had polled some votes in every polling booth. Unlike other parties, it had a clear-cut agenda. But it had to strengthen itself organizationally, identify competent people and provide them space in the party to make an impact in elections.

Dr. JP rubbished certain parties’ propaganda that they had lost the elections because of Lok Satta’s inroads into their vote banks. Claiming certain sections of people as the vote banks of any party was nothing an affront to them. He cited two instances to drive home the point that parties did not have any permanent vote banks. The BJP claimed that it had lost in the May 2008 Musheerabad by election because of the Lok Satta. Although the same candidates were in the race in the 2009 Assembly elections, the BJP polled less votes than in the by election while the Lok Satta doubled its votes. Similarly in the Secunderabad Assembly constituency, the TDP, which contested in alliance with the TRS in the 2009 elections, was defeated while the Lok Satta polle 50 percent more votes than in the 2008 by election.

Mr. Srinivasa Rao and Mr. Ravi said the party contestants displayed enormous confidence in the future of the party, and displayed no signs of disappointment or despair over their inability to convert people’s good will into votes. They believed that every vote they polled was equivalent to 100 votes of their opponents because it was a fight between dharma and adharma. The party was determined to make a better showing in the local body elections, the spokesmen said.