Political internship attracts youngsters
Political parties are now emerging as a internship destination for management graduates and college students. This is hardly a mainstream trend yet, but for a fair number of students from IIMs in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru and Kolkata, political parties are a new cool internship destination. Their choice for internship mirrors their curiosity and enthusiasm to explore politics as a classroom to learn management skills.
City students are following the trend too and opting for political internship to understand the system better. Twenty five-year-old Mainka Khan (named changed), a St Stephen’s student, did her internship with National Youth Congress. She is planning a career in politics and is keen on standing for Municipality elections in Delhi in the future. “It really helped me understand the mechanism, functions and decision-making policies of the party. I realise how some parties have a strong religious entity and leaning. But I think it shouldn’t matter to young people. If I join politics I would like to change this perception.”
Another student, Rahul Sharma (name changed), an MBA student from Ghaziabad, who is interning with BJP, says, “The experience helped me meet smart, intelligent, young people with strong will-power, who are perfect role models. I interned with the party for three months. I joined it to learn the party’s organisational structure and parliamentary affairs etc. If I ever join politics, I would love to work on the development of education sector in the country.”
Devendra Pai, a young social entrepreneur from Mumbai, came to Delhi and interned with Independent leader Rajiv Chandrashekar, MP, Rajya Sabha. He also worked with him professionally as an analyst for more than a year. “As a political student, I always wanted to know the ground reality of how a party and government of India function. Though working with an independent leader restricted me from being a part of mainstream politics, I was involved in various political activities including Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev movements. But I would like to be a political representative in Mumbai and be part of major developments in decentralised administration of the city. After working in Delhi, I realised that political accountability of Mumbai is really poor,” he says.
Pallam Raju, political leader, Ministry of State for Defence, says, “As we opted for parliamentary form of democracy, every individual has the right to be a part of the political system. We have students coming from B-schools. It’s great to see their enthusiasm. We mainly hire people with a competitive attitude,” he says.
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