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Mallya has big plans for the Janata Party

May 13, 2003 18:25 IST
The Janata Party, relaunched at the initiative of liquor baron-turned-politician Vijay Mallya, has decided to re-enter the electoral arena with full force in the Lok Sabha election scheduled to be held next year.

To begin with, the party will concentrate on Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Pondicherry.

"The JP will be an important component of the third front," Mallya, its national working president, said while launching its Goa unit in Panjim.

Professor Surendra Sirsat, former speaker of the Goa assembly and a former president of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, has been nominated the state president of the Janata Party. He will identify a core group and appoint the office-bearers of the party.

Mallya described as an afternoon siesta the collapse and continued degeneration of the Janata Party after changing the country's political history in the post-Emergency election in 1977. "With former prime minister Chandra Shekhar as its convenor, it is now being refreshed with dynamic and result-oriented leadership," he claimed.

According to the Rajya Sabha member, his party enjoys the support of Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra, Laloo Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar, and Farooq Abdullah's National Conference in Jammu and Kashmir.

Youth has been identified as the prime focus of the party with young blood, fresh ideas, commitment and accountability as the criteria to select its cadres. Mallya envisages professionalisation of politics on the lines of the political scene overseas. Mallya, who said his party would remain equidistant from the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress, was confident that the frustrated youth of the country would repose their confidence in his 'professional' concept.

Sandesh Prabhudesai in Panjim