If elected, I would like to move a private members' bill to bring in WSA
Bengaluru: A lanky lad from Nagamangala with a dream of becoming a lawyer, who arrived in Bengaluru about eight years ago, is now the Congress party’s candidate for Mahalakshmi Layout in the city these assembly polls. Twenty seven year-old, N. S. Manjunath, who is also the party’s National Student Union of India's (NSUI) first ever elected president in the state, does not hold back on his admiration for his mentor and the party's campaign committee chairman, D. K. Shivakumar. Beaming at the trust placed in him by the party, he spoke to Deccan Chronicle about his plans to turn Mahalakshmi Layout into a model constituency if elected on May 12. Excerpts:
How did you start your political journey?
(Laughs) When I landed here eight years ago I had only one dream of becoming a lawyer, but destiny willed otherwise and I became a politician at a very young age when I met my political mentor about seven years ago accidentally. It was he who recognised my potential and asked whether I would like to work for his party. I said yes and the rest is history. He has held my hands so firmly until now that I am now following in his footsteps. It was he who told me to join the NSUI. I joined it first as a member and later became its general secretary and then president.
Did you ever think you would be chosen to contest for an MLA’s position?
In hindsight, I did nurse a dream of becoming MLA but never thought that I would get the opportunity so early. I must thank Congress president Rahul Gandhi too for recognising the campaigns I have done over the last three years.
What were these campaigns?
My first big challenge was to increase the membership of the NSUI which was just round 20,000 when I joined and it was active in just two or three districts. After becoming general secretary, Mr Gandhi focused on cultivating the party’s youth leadership across the country. That is when I seriously got involved in building the organisation and took its membership to two lakh and ensured that NSUI units functioned in every district. But my first big break came when I launched a protest against tax imposed on sanitary pads by the Union government. The most recent was the pakoda campaign, when we tried to sell pakodas in BJP rallies. This caught Mr Gandhi’s attention. I also led protests against our own state government demanding free bus pass for every student and reintroduction of the carry-over system in VTU.
What are your plans for Mahalakshmi Layout?
If I am elected, I would like to move a private members’ bill to bring in a Water Security Act. We can no longer afford to squander our water. Bengaluru will not have enough water, if we do not have a proper Act to regulate its use.
