IPM School Special 2017

this youngest political party,” said Santosh Addagulla, AAP Bay Area Chapter’s founding member chap- ter’s treasurer. “Mainly because, AAP is incorruptible and is not funded by the corporate.” He seems to take a lot of pride of that single fact. It’s not just San- tosh, but hundreds of others in the Bay Area who are working for the success of AAP’s victory with a sense of courage and conviction, laughing off the allegations of them being radicals and terrorists. These young warriors far from being “radicals” or “terrorists” are mostly engineers, restaurateurs, and even students. They see a lot of hope in AAP and Kejriwal, who they think is fighting hard against the system to make India better. “AAP is like the poor, unwanted child of Indian political arena that questions everything that is estab- lished and corrupt fearlessly. That’s why almost every corrupt system from politics to media hates it,” says Mickey Sra, a passionate supporter of AAP. “Kejriwal is a simple man who thinks of the well-being of Punjab. He is not into politics for money.” The minute you enter into the restaurant where young men and women are making calls to India in support of Punjab and Goa, you can see the energy woven by a killer in- stinct and hope amongst them. They did not like wasting time talk- ing to me, instead wanting to make more calls so as to save every minute, making each vote count. Each had their own laptop, phone and other needed inventory like headphones. They all are mostly en- gineers and doctors and came to-

gether to birth one goal: Making AAP win Punjab and Goa, for a bet- ter India, an India they left behind in search of better prospects; an India they want to go back to, once AAP brings it back to normal living condition; an India they want to see dominant on the globe for its suc- cess stories. Raja Sweets (restaurant) the cur- rent war room, is located in Union City, about 30 miles from where I live, San Jose. Owned by Makhan Singh Bains and Ravinder Singh Bains, it provides a cozy and con- venient space for the volunteers to work in peace. The Bain brothers host them and the hospitality ex- tends to sumptuous dinners, deserts and tea. This routine has been in progress for months now. “Because Punjab needs AAP,” says Mickey Sra (Manpreet Singh Sra) who is part of AAP’s Bay Area Outreach team. “It’s been robbed of its prosperity by this corrupt combi- nation of Congress and Alkalis. We want to bring back its pride.” Can AAP bring that back to Punjab? They all agree vociferously. “Yes, I have been observing Arvind since the days of his ac- tivism, even before Anna Andolan,” said Santosh, who is originally from Telengana. “He’s the best and what he is doing in Delhi is unprece- dented.” Prabhat Sharma, AAP USAWest coast convener and an engineer from Bihar initiated building a gov- ernment school in Jammu and Kashmir that got destroyed in floods in 2014. The school was re- built in 6 months with the help of an Why so much passion and ur- gency?

NGO, Sahaita, and the IndianArmy. Though this one school was rebuilt with the help of an NGO the plight of other such thousands of govern- ment schools under similar situa- tions remained bleak. The Government does get funds for this

purpose, but they do get siphoned away or get years to rebuild. By then kids either grow up or lose in- terest in coming to school. “Because of bad politics com- mon people are suffering in all as- pects of life so I decided to support AAP that has vision and intention to change the system and work for common man. This is what is hap- pening in Delhi. AAP government under Sisodia is building quality schools left and right, and I am thrilled about it. If it comes to power in Punjab, it (Punjab) will grow lit- erally as well,” says Prabhat. Prabhat strongly believes that education is the key to grassroot de- velopment and hence decided to Santosh Addagulla, AAP Bay Area Chapter’s founding member and treasurer feels AAP is the future of India

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School Special 2017

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