Lok Paritran

A bunch of highly qualified economists and ex-IITans have started this political party – “Lok Paritran”. They are contesting the Tamil Nadu elections this time and it’ll be interesting to see what happens. Here’s some analysis on Lok Paritran, the people who have started this party and what I think about their strategy to date.

The people:

A lot has been written about how these highly qualified, US educated guys have “sacrificed” top notch jobs to work for “our” nation. Frankly, I don’t think they have sacrificed anything. What they are doing is very similar to doing a start-up. After their high-quality education they have seen this opportunity to do a start-up in politics. They have this idea and the idea is to form a political party for the “educated Indians” and they want to see how things go. It’s definitely a very good idea. There is no question about it. If the start-up works out, great, India can look forward to some sensible educated leaders. If it doesn’t work out, these guys can always get back to some pretty good jobs.

Their Strategy- the positives:

They have chosen the right constituencies to contest the elections. If at all anybody is going to vote for them, it’s the educated class. The highest % of the educated dudes in TN live in: Mylapore, T.Nagar, Anna Nagar, Thousand Light, Park Town, Saidapet, and Rasipuram. Mylapore especially will be interesting because Vasudev (Lok Paritran’s chief advisor) is fighting against SV Sekar and Napoleon. 70 % of Mylapore usually doesn’t vote. Let’s see if economist Vasudev can change this trend.

All these guys have a good background in economics, so they really know, at least theoretically, what it takes to build on a nation’s economy and what developing and developed economies mean.

They have also got their basics right. These guys are getting full-time into politics. This is not their part(y)-time job. They seem pretty committed to their ideals and principles. And, it seems like if their start-up fails, they wouldn’t modify their ideals just to be successful.

The negatives:

Dude, remember you are contesting an election in Tamil Nadu. Half the people there can’t pronounce “Lok Paritran” even after loads of help. It doesn’t take a New York University economist to figure this out.

Marketing: They haven’t done the right things as far as marketing goes. I know a huge bunch of people who would definitely vote for them, who have no clue these guys exist.


It’s wonderful someone decided to implement Mani Ratnam’s idea. But to be a successful start-up, it takes more than just high quality education. Their performance in Mylapore, T.Nagar and Annanagar will give us a good indication of how well these guys started off.