When Thomas T Jacob, a resident of Arumbakkam and a young advocate at Madras High Court, decided to contest from Central Chennai Parliamentary constituency (on behalf of Youth and Students Party (YSP) ), he had one motivating factor. That is 60 per cent of the electorate belonged to the youth community.

Jacob is sure that if these youth voters aged between 18-40 unitedly  elect a honest candidate they can change the face of this nation. So, his party  has fielded him from Central Chennai to prove the people that apart from muscle power, money power and mass appeal there is something called youth power in the electioneering of India.

In a chat with News Today Jacob discussed about his party, its dream on people and its agendas:

Q. Why Youth and Students Party (YSP)?

A. Though we have many political parties in our country all of them are exploiting youth for their own benefit. From sticking posters to going to jail youth’s roles are fixed and limited. When it comes to election no one nominates young people’s name saying ‘you have to wait’. But YSP is a registered national party by the youth and of the youth.

Q. So, how it was formed?

A. Youth and Students Party was founded by P Kumaran in 2004. Before its formation many of the party members were associated with Tamilnadu Youth and Students Association which had an over whopping strength of 45,000 youths in 2003.  

When we converted into YSP there was a lapse in our cadre strength and now we have 10,000 people altogether and have a wide presence in all districts. YSP made its maiden political appearance in 2004 Lok Sabha elections from Nilgiris constituency and party founder Kumaran got 6,700 votes. Since the party’s inception, I was its official spokesperson and legal advisor. Also I am involved with the writing of its constitution.

Q. What is your major concern in Central Chennai constituency?

A. Central Chennai needs more development and YSP will work towards that objective. We cannot say that we will win here. But we are doing all the possible things to win. Whether we succeeded in it or fail I assure you that we are going to work for the development of this constituency. For the next five years that is our agenda. Once elected YSP will make Chennai Central constituency a model constituency for the rest of the country.  

Q. What is your party’s other objectives?

A Knowledge based political system with accountability politics, install a sense of true Indian spirit irrespective of language, religion and subdivisions, give preference to rise of literate, honest individuals to serve the country, electoral reforms to check and contain criminalisation of politics, use of black money and black listing of corrupt Parliamentarians.

Q. Why did you select ‘cricket bat’ as your symbol?

A. We want our symbol to be stored in people’s mind. It is IPL time and more people are after cricket. So we decided to select that symbol.