IIM-A student chooses politics over placements

Opts out of placements to apply to national political parties.

If Krishna Chepuri, an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), made history by interning with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) politburo member Sitaram Yechury, another IIM-A student has now chosen politics over placements. Final year post graduate programme (PGP) student Srijan Pal Singh has opted out of placements to pursue his dream of joining politics.

The 25-year-old has applied to a couple of national political parties including Congress party and is awaiting reply.

“I had always wanted to work with political parties and be actively involved in politics. So far even as a student I had been trying my hand at politics in several ways. Now, I wish to get fully involved in politics which is why I opted out of placements this year in spite of having couple of offers in hand. I personally wish to work for Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi," said Singh, who, after applying on the political party's website, is now lobbying in the political corridors of Delhi to fulfill his dream.

Singh's interests in politics can be linked his involvement in the Public Policy Group (PPG) course, for which a team of seven students were assisted by Members of Parliament (MPs) like Sitaram Yechury, Madhusudan Mistry and Harin Pathak to formulate a framework for constituency management programme, last year.

Under the PPG course, Singh, and his batchmates, also developed an information and communication technology (ICT) system under which citizens in several constituencies could register their complaints with their respective MPs through an interactive voice response system (IVRS) and avail prompt response from respective departments.

Singh, who has worked with several NGOs and Boston Consulting Group (BCG), also has an offer from the global agency in hand. Before pursuing a PGP degree from IIM-A, Singh graduated in mechanical engineering from the Government Engineering College at Lucknow.

This year, around seven students have opted out of final placements at IIM-A including Srijan. Another final year PGP student, V Krishnakanth, 24, has decided to set up his own career consulting firm to coach eng0ineering undergraduates for post graduate entrance exams. "Coaching is a very fragmented market and I observed that students rarely get all kinds of coaching at one place. Using my education at IIM-A, I will be coaching them on how to crack several entrance exams. While currently I will be focusing on engineering undergraduates, later on I will also train Std. XII students for SAT," said Krishnakanth.