In 2007, after having experienced first hand the total vacuum of liberal leadership in India, I had started the Freedom Team of India.

Typical of my (somewhat similar) previous experience with India Policy Institute, hundreds of middle class internet savvy people joined. The difference this time was that FTI required everyone to commit in-principle to contesting elections under the banner of liberty.

Unfortunately, when the crunch came (when Swarna Bharat Party sought nominations for the 2019 elections), most FTI members were not ready to contest. We did get a total of four candidates, of course, and I’m hoping we can announce at least a few more candidates.

So, earlier this year — more than 10 years after floating FTI — I suggested we try a different approach: that we hold a young leaders workshop – where we’d invite young leaders mainly from Hindi speaking states and hopefully find high quality talent that could be moulded into top-notch liberal leadership.

I’m grateful for Anil Sharma and the Bhadohi SBP team who made this workshop a reality — on 5 and 6 April in Allahabad. They organised it wonderfully well, as they have been doing all their activities in Eastern UP.

It turns out that the work being undertaken in Bhadohi has activated numerous networks in Eastern UP. It is through these networks that around 12 persons were identified and attended. In particular, there was a strong team from Ballia district. I gather that a few young leaders have been shortlisted for further engagement. A key issue now would be the ideological induction and training of these young leaders.

Within a few weeks we’ll know whether it was worthwhile to hold this workshop and whether we should try to hold more in the coming months and years.

As you can imagine, we simply can’t change India’s miserable governance performance unless we get high quality leaders into parliament. We need to challenge socialist nitwits like Modi, Rahul Gandhi and Kerjiwal, among others.

If you are ready to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections under the banner of Swarna Bharat Party, get in touch with me at sabhlok@gmail.com.

Rahul Pandit speaking to participants of the Young Leaders Workshop in Allahabad on 5 April 2018 (also present are a few SBP leaders).