Jayaprakash Narayan (Lok Satta)
Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan (Telugu: జయప్రకాష్ నారయణ్ ; 1956 - ), widely known as JP, is currently an MLA (Member of Legislative Assembly) from Kukatpally constituency in Andhra Pradesh and the president of Lok Satta (party).[1] He is also a former Indian public administrator, a social reformer and a columnist. He is well known for his role in bringing electoral reforms and for his columns on democracy in leading Indian daily newspapers.
Nagabhairava Jaya Prakash Narayan was born on Jan 14th, 1956 in Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh He was raised in Maharashtra in his early years. He went to a Telugu medium government school in Godavarru in Krishna District. He joined Andhra Loyola College in 1969 for his intermediate education. He obtained his medical degree from Guntur Medical college.
Civil Servant:-
Jayaprakash Narayan, a physician, joined public administration after making it to I.A.S. in 1980 standing all India second. He worked on agriculture, irrigation, technology and youth rehabilitation projects in various capacities in various districts of Andhra Pradesh. He had an eventful 16-year-long career in the government. Some of his achievements include
Led rehabilitation of 8000 youth from displaced families of the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant.
Designed the reconstruction of drainage and irrigation network in Krishna, Prakasham and Godavari deltas. He successfully mobilized the farmers on a large scale to take up irrigation schemes to bring two lakh acres came under irrigation.
Strengthened the credit cooperatives and making them independent of government control.
Served as Secretary to both Governor and Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh.
He also had several major policy initiatives to his credit.
Empowerment of parents in schools.
Economic reform and restructuring of AP.
Development of the Infocity Hi‑Tech City in Hyderabad to facilitate the growth of the software industry.
Empowerment of local governments and stakeholders.
He also served on the following panels.
The National Advisory Council (NAC) for the implementation of the National Common Minimum Programme
Vigilance Advisory Council.
Second Administrative Reforms Commission constituted by the Government of India.
Lok Satta Movement:-
Jayaprakash Narayan started Lok Satta Movement (means people power) in 1997 to educate citizens of India about voting, rights and government. Lok Satta, along with similar organizations worked on various activities like election reforms, police reforms, right to information act and voter registration procedures. The movement initially started in Andhra Pradesh and later spread across the country, including Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and the Vote JUHU campaigns[5] Lok Satta is in the forefront of key initiatives like disclosure of candidate wealth and criminal history details, political funding reform, decriminalization of politics, improvement of electoral registration, comprehensive judicial reforms including local courts, and national judicial commission and citizen's charters.
Political Career:-
He started the Lok Satta political party in 2006 with clean politics and good governance and improvement of the India as the main agenda. While launching the political party, he stated that this party aimed to enrich the political scenario in India with its true spirit and felt that it would be considered as an alternative to any other political party, since it aimed to create a true and faithful political picture in India with out involving money, liquor and caste in elections.
2009 Elections:-
His party, Lok Satta, contested again in the 249 Legislative Assembly seats in 2009 general elections. He toured Andhra Pradesh in trains similar to the way freedom fighters traveled to reach people. Jayaprakash Narayan himself contested from Kukatpally, and won with 15,000 votes majority over the nearest opponent. His victory is quoted as "the victory of people" as he won the election without distributing money or liquor. In his victory speech, he mentioned that his immediate priorities were improve basic amenities, drinking water, sewage and provide institutional plan for education and health care, if the government was willing and work for empowering people in Kukatpally and replicating it elsewhere.