Kolkata, March 8: With zero political experience, but strong academic background, two young graduates are working with the Trinamool Congress to do research work for the West Bengal Assembly elections beginning next month.
Sumedha Jalote and Piyush Gupta, both in their twenties, are working with party MPs Derek O’Brien and Sudip Bandyopadhyay as part of a LAMP (Legislative Assistants to Members of Parliament) fellowship.
Jalote holds a degree in economics and political science from Singapore Management University, while Gupta is an electrical engineering graduate from Thapar University.
“They are doing the back-end research work for us like comparing West Bengal’s performance with the national indices, compiling and analysing data on development work done in the state. All this will help us in poll campaigning,” O’Brien said.
Having joined the MPs last July in Delhi for a period of one year, both of them are now shifting to Kolkata to work on elections.
Gupta, who aspires a job in public administration, said since he comes from a background of engineering, he could provide with non-partisan inputs and out-of-the-box ideas on various topics.
“We study all developments related to the state very closely and how other candidates are devising their strategies. We then give our own inputs on how to influence public opinion in your favour with various strategies,” he said.
