Student volunteers from over 40 foreign universities support AAP

Washington: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has got support from a network of volunteers, comprising of students from over forty universities in the US, Canada, Britain, Hungary and Singapore in its electoral venture.

Quietly launched in September, the network has grown to over 40 universities where students are taking time from their graduate studies to volunteer for AAP and make financial contributions, a media release said yesterday.

“The students are inspired by Arvind Kejriwal and AAP. The opportunity to remove corruption and improve lives of common people in India - the central tenets of AAP, are energizing the students and young professional communities around the world,” said Shail Kumar, former president of the IIT foundation and the organizer and co-founder of the network.

The students are hosting Hangouts and events for AAP, making phone calls and donating money, the report said. Majority of these are graduate students, who were earlier involved in the India Against Corruption movement, the precursor of AAP.

“With elections around the corner, I am confident that the energy that students can bring to our campaign will help carry our message to more voters,” Arvind Kejriwal, national convener of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said.

“The Anna movement in 2011 inspired me. I always supported the idea that to change the system we need to get in it and the formation of AAP provided me a perfect opportunity to support such an action,” said Raj Shekhar Singh, a graduate student at University of California, Berkeley and one of the co-founders of the network.

Raj is a donor for AAP and also hosted the Hangout in Berkeley, California.

Suma Jaini, co-founder of the network and a PhD candidate at Boston University, hoped AAP wins the upcoming elections and establishes the government in Delhi. She a IIT Kharagpur alumni.

The AAP student network among others include universities such as UC Berkeley; University of Texas, Austin: University of Iowa, Texas A&M, Boston University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, McGill University in Canada, University of Cambridge in UK and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

PTI