| Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan | |
|---|---|
| President, Lok Satta Party | |
| Member, Legislative Assembly, Andhra Pradesh, India | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 2009 |
|
| Constituency | Kukatpally, Hyderabad, India |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 14 January 1956 |
Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan (Telugu: జయప్రకాశ్ నారయణ్ ; 1956 - ), widely known as JP, is a noted Indian politician, political reformer and columnist. He is the President of Lok Satta Party and currently a Member of the Legislative Assembly from Kukatpally constituency in Andhra Pradesh.[1] He is also a former Indian public administrator. He is well known for his role in bringing electoral reforms and for his columns on democracy in leading Indian daily newspapers.
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Nagabhairava Jayaprakash Narayan was born on Jan 14th, 1956 in Naghbir [Maharashtra] and came to Godavarru Village at the age of 3 yrs near Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh to pursue his education in Telugu Medium . He joined Andhra Loyola College in 1969 for his intermediate education. He obtained his medical degree from Guntur Medical College.
Jayaprakash Narayan, a physician, joined public administration after making it to I.A.S. in 1980 standing among all India top 10. He worked on agriculture, irrigation, technology and youth rehabilitation projects in various capacities in various districts of Andhra Pradesh. He had an eventful 16-year-long career in the government. Some of his achievements include [2]:
He also has several major policy initiatives to his credit.
Dr. JP’s experience in the government convinced him that the faulty governance process is the biggest hurdle in India’s path of progress. He resigned from the I.A.S in 1996, as he wanted to work on grass roots for good governance.[3][4] Jayaprakash Narayan, an optimistic individual, talks about the efficacy of reforms in the governance, Economy of Andhra Pradesh among several other issues on various platforms in educational and political institutes. He emphasizes that democracy is for the people, of the people and by the people. He has also written columns in Indian newspapers like Times of India, The Economic Times, Financial Express, The Hindu and Eenadu. He also hosted television shows covering elections and politics such as "Pratidhwani".
Dr. JP has served on the following panels.
Dr. JP is the founder member of Foundation For Democratic Reforms (FDR) and currently serves as its general secretary. FDR is one of India's leading think-tanks and research-resource centers for formulating and promoting fundamental reforms in political, electoral and governance spheres and in critical areas of state policy.
Jayaprakash Narayan started Lok Satta Movement (means people power) in 1997 to educate citizens of India about voting, rights and government. Lok Satta, a non-partisan movement for democratic reforms in India, worked on various activities[2] like election reforms, police reforms, right to information act and voter registration procedures. The movement initially started in Andhra Pradesh and later spread across the country, including Mumbai and the Vote JUHU campaigns.[5]
Lok Satta is in the forefront of key initiatives like disclosure of candidate wealth and criminal history details, political funding reform, decriminalization of politics, improvement of electoral registration, comprehensive judicial reforms including local courts, and national judicial commission and citizen's charters.
He started the Lok Satta party in 2006 with clean politics and good governance and improvement of India as the main agenda. While launching the political party, he stated that this party aimed to enrich the political scenario in India with its true spirit and felt that it would be considered as an alternative to any other political party, since it aimed to create a true and faithful political picture in India with out involving illegitimate money, liquor and caste in elections.
Lok Satta Party contested in 2008 in the Assembly by-elections for the first time, and was able to secure second place in two of the four places (Khairatabad, Terlam) it contested from.[6]
Lok Satta Party contested again in the 234 Legislative Assembly seats in 2009 general elections. He toured Andhra Pradesh in trains similar to the way freedom fighters traveled to reach people. Jayaprakash Narayan himself contested from Kukatpally, and won with 15,000 votes majority over the nearest opponent. His victory is quoted as "the victory of people" as he won the election without distributing money or liquor.
Assembly Election Results in 2009 - DR JAYA PRAKASH NARAYAN Won with 34.84 votes
Jayaprakash Narayan is one of the vocal leaders in assembly proceedings. Some of the major contributions to Andhra Pradesh 13th assembly are:
On 18th February 2011, Jayaprakash Narayan was attacked by members of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) on the assembly premises after he gave a media interview highlighting the degrading democratic values in the state assembly in the context of attack on the state governer E. S. L. Narasimhan inside the state assembly.[15] After the end of the interview, JP was attacked by TRS activists. TRS leaders K.T.Rama Rao, T.Harish Rao and D.Vinay Bhaskar instigated the attack. TRS continues to defend its actions, while all political parties cutting across the party lines have condemned the attack.
Dr. JP tours the Constituency every Saturday to get a first hand look at people's problems in the constituency and meets people at IMAX gardens, Road No.4 to listen to their problems. The following are activities undertaken by him.[16]
JP is currently married to Radha, a lawyer. They have two children, a son and a daughter.