War Veterans' Party, India

From : Col M.S. krishnamoorthy (Short form MSK) JAI HIND. Greetings, best wishes and regards. Most of you are aware that right from 18th June, 2008 I have been advocating a three-pronged strategy for achieving our short term and long term goals. The three approaches, I have been talking about, are – the representational approach – IESL is ideally suited for this as they have been doing this for many decades. The second is the agitational approach - This has been handled admirably well by the earlier ESM group, now formalized as IESM. We should all do our best in lending support to this group and building up pressure on the Government. The third is the ballot box route. As I said at the meeting held on 13th Aug in NOIDA, I had been informally encouraged to investigate this route and come out with concrete proposals. The first and the second courses have their own limitations. IESL by virtue of its constitution, according to which the President of India is its Patron in Chief and the Raksha Mantri is its patron has its own limitations. This places a very serious restriction on what they can do and what they cannot. Strictly speaking, they cannot, at any point, flex their muscles. The pen is the only weapon that they can wield. The language that they can use has also to be very polite. As for the second course, there is a limit to the areas which they can cover. As one who is expounding the causes of ex-servicemen, they have to be very careful while trespassing into areas, not directly related to ex-servicemen problems like order of precedence or what should be done on the safeguarding of the territorial integrity of the country. A political party, on the other hand, has no limitations like the ones stated above. They can talk about anything that relates to the people’s welfare and the country’s well-being and security – internal as well as external – even other areas of security like energy security , food security, economic security, information security and the like. We have seen that even M.Ps taking bribes on the floor of the Parliament house has not been considered an offence. Therefore we must develop the political route as a supporting instrument to the first two channels. I had agreed to work on this and after reaching a state of finality, I will come back to the steering committee of IESM and IESL. However, finding that time is short before the dates for the next Lok Sabha elections are announced, I felt that we should not delay our enrollment of primary members for the political wing by waiting for the mutually agreed and permissible amendments to the constitution of W V P. I have been in touch with War Veterans Party which was formed by two Naval officers and their supporters. After over two years of toil, they got the party registered with Election Commission of India as a national party. We must clearly understand the difference between registration as a National party and recognition as such. If you go on the net http://www.eci.gov.in/ElectoralLaws/OrdersNotifications/Consolidated%20list,%20Eng lish%202007.pdf, you will find that as on 8/11/2007, there were 6 recognized national parties ( 1. Bahujan Samaj party, 2. Bhartiya janta party, 3. Communist party of India, 4. Communist party of India (Marxist), 5. Indian national Congress and 6. National congress party) and 876 registered parties. War Veterans party, W V P for short, have decided to go on a massive membership enhancement drive and field about 20 candidates for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. I have agreed to function as their Secretary General, as an interim measure, with my HQ in Gurgaon. My primary role will be to organize state, district, block and village outfits in the Northern region and build up a

staggering membership roster, which will be put out on our website and continuously updated, with special emphasis on high ex-servicemen density areas. If our membership becomes disturbingly large, we are fairly sure that some of the major political parties, including regional parties, will try to come to an understanding with us so that we do not play a negative role in causing a swing in their calculations, detrimental to their interests. As a first step we have tentatively carved out six zones as an administrative measure. For the time-being, we have left out some of the states where there is poor ex-servicemen presence. These can be joined to the zone in their proximity later. This will be done after we get stabilized in areas of high-ex-servicemen density. The most urgent need is to enroll and members. This is to be done at a high Rs. 11/- (Triennial). Simultaneously, mobilization and convincing the media sincerity of our intentions.

build up an impressive total of primary pressure. The primary membership fee is only we must attempt to work on resource about the justness of our cause and the

We felt that to make an impact on the elite citizens, who mostly stay away from exercising their franchise, a good website is a must. This is also a must for resource mobilization to convince that the wealth-generators of the country that they can continue to work in their areas, without fearing any damage to the wealth they create, due to internal disturbances or external aggression. So, a well designed website has been launched by the party today. The party gave me the honour of declaring the website open by putting on the first message on the website. The text of the message is reproduced at the end of this mail. The details of our zonal demarcations, demarcation of Lok Sabha constituencies and the format for applying for primary membership will be added as we go along. Finally, we may rehash the matter on the website to form a full explanatory text on the party. I am sending this mail to you with the fond hope that you will be able to help us in enrolling as many primary members as you can and help also in getting media support at National and regional levels through your good offices. I will be failing in my duty if I do not own up that we are all recruits in this political game and we can gain strength only if we share our ideas and contacts. So, suggestions on draft operational modalities which we put out will be most welcome. Jai Hind Jai Jawan - Jai Col M.S. Krishnamoorthy (Retd) Secretary General

Kisan.