Anna should form a new kind of political party: Yogendra Yadav

What should Anna Hazare and his team do if it decides to join politics? Yogendra Yadav, senior fellow at CSDS, feels that Anna can lay foundations for new kind of political organization in the country.

“I would tell him to say to the country that it needs an alternative kind of politics. And to say while I will not join a political party, I am here to help you form one by lying foundations of a new kind of a political organization,” Yadav said to Karan Thapar on CNN

Yadav also suggests that Anna Hazare should not call the new organization a ‘party’ overnight, and also it should try to involve other social movements which are active in the country.

“Social movements of all kinds are trying to do something in politics, trying to create a third force in politics. Give a call to all of them outside the political establishment, outside the 30-40 parties, outside the parliament, to come and form a new political force,” Yadav said.

“Give that call, wait, get people to coalesce, and then start facing tough questions about the entire range politics must involve,” Yadav added.

To enter politics is the only way forward for Team Anna, according to Yadav.

“In essence what Anna Hazare has been doing for more than one year is politics by other means. Having reached some kind of a dead end, the only was forward is political in more obvious sense of the term which is by forming a political organization by contributing to a political alternative,” Yadav said.

Yadav said that one needs to questions how the new political alternative, provided by Team Anna, would be different than present one.

“To my mind the real question is not whether Anna should support, endorse or help creation of political alternative. The real question is whether that alternative which he supports, endorses or creates would be any different from the ones that are available today. That’s were the real challenge lies,” he said.