The Inspiring Story of Shri Raj Sekhar Varma Mudunuri

MPTC of Yedurlanka Village, East Godavari District, A.P

Introduction: Raj Sekhar Varma Mudunuri was an NRI, who did his doctoral research at
Leipzig University, Germany. He was attracted to the then Lok Satta Movement headed by
Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan and he wanted to fight for the cause of clean politics ever since. He
returned to India in October 2010 and started participating in active politics in Kakinada for a
brief time, before he joined in GITAM University during summer of 2011. He started
working as an Assistant Professor at GITAM university for four years. He joined the Loksatta
Party in 2010, and served in various capacities, as the Secretary for Kakinada city’s party
unit, as the District President of the party for 2 years. When local body elections were
announced in 2014, he contested as the independent candidate for MPTC (Mandal Parishad
Territorial Constituency) elections and secured a thumping victory.

After winning the local body elections, he permanently resigned from his job as Assistant
Professor at GITAM University to render full-time service to his village community. During
his five years’ term, he was responsible for carrying out notable development activities, like
building a digital classroom in the local school, construction of roads. He fought and secured
CSR funds worth Rs. 2 Crores for his village development from the Oil India Company. He
also successfully negotiated in creating employment opportunities for the local village youth
in the Oil India company, who were conducting oil exploration in his village.

Family Background and Education:

Rajsekhar Varma Mudunuri was born on 15th June, 1977 in Yedurlanka village, Andhra
Pradesh to an agricultural family. Many of his family members were active in local politics.
His Grandfather served as the Village Sarpanch during the 1970s, His Uncle served as the
Village Sarpanch during the 1980s, His Father was President of the Primary Agricultural
Cooperative Society during 1990s. His father was well known for his philanthropic activities
and his mother worked also served as the Village Sarpanch between 2006 to 2011. Rajsekhar
Varma graduated his B. Tech course from Hindustan College of Engineering, Chennai in
1998. He later moved on to Germany in 2001 to do his post graduation form Technical
University of Dresden, and he completed his doctoral research from Leipzig University,
Germany in 2010..

Timeline:

1977 Born
1994 - 98 Graduation, Hindustan College of Engineering, Chennai
2001 - 05 Post-Graduation, Technical University of Dresden, Germany
2006 -10 Doctoral Research, Leipzig University, Germany
2010 Joined in Lok Satta Party
2011 -15 Worked as Assistant Professor
2016 -18 Worked as District President

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 2014 -19 Served as MPTC (Independent)

The transition from Academics to Politics:

Raj Sekhar Varma believes that political decisions taken by people’s representatives on our
behalf, affects every aspect of our lives. It is this understanding that made him delve deep
into the Indian political scene when he was still in his doctoral research in Germany.
Incidentally, Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan and his team from the Lok Satta movement/party were
doing their best to bring awareness to the public around the same time. Dr. JP's electoral
victory during 2009 assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh has given a symbol of hope for
many aspiring youths including him. to own this new age political platform i.e. Loksatta
Party and serve the society in a true sense. He made a conscious decision back then itself to
opt for political service as a profession, at some point in the future.

He moved back to India in October 2010 and was waiting for the local body elections
that are due in the summer of 2011. However, as the state government was not interested in
conducting elections as per schedule, he didn’t want to waste time and joined GITAM
University in June 2011, to work in Academia for a while. This was also a conscious decision
that allowed him to work closely with the future of the country, i.e. the students.

It wasn’t a long wait, as Panchayat elections were announced in 2013 August, and
while he was getting ready to take part in it, he could not contest for the Sarpanch post as it
was reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates only. As he belongs to the unreserved category
he had to opt-out from the fray. However, he still had the opportunity to contest for ‘Ward
Member’ for one of the 10 wards (divisions) that his village was divided into. Each Ward was
a small area consisting of merely 60 households (220 votes), and he thought it should be an
easy task to convince the public to vote for an honest candidate with a clear vision and
mission. Well, it was not anywhere near to what he expected the electoral battle would be. He
secured only 36 votes (out of 220 votes) in his first-ever elections.

He got his first big lesson during that small ward level electoral battle, which is; the
candidates’ vision, mission, and manifesto have little to do with the voter's psyche. Multiple
factors influence the voter to support a particular candidate/party. He lost that (Panchayat
Ward) election and got back to continue with his assistant professorship at GITAM
University, until the next opportunity came calling within a year, in April 2014. This time
too, it was a local body election, but for the territorial constituency (his village) at
Mandal/Block level. An MPTC (Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituency) member
represents a territory (sometimes an entire village if it is small, or part of a village if it is big)
at the Mandal/Block Parishad council.

Fortunately, the MPTC candidature in his village was unreserved, and that allowed
him to participate this time. Initially, he decided to contest as a Lok Satta Party candidate.
However, from the moment he announced his candidacy to contest as an MPTC member for
his village, the real political battlefield in his village has thrown its true ugly challenges. All
the heads of the village who belong to a particular upper caste, have unanimously decided a
candidate amongst themselves. The opponent candidate chosen by the heads of the village
allegedly offered money to withdraw himself from the contest.

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Based on the initial information that he has gathered from various quarters, he figured out
that his opponent was too weak a candidate at a personal level to contest against him, even
though he enjoyed unanimous support from various political parties. Therefore, his strategic
ploy was to make it a “person vs person contest” rather than “party vs party contest”.
Heeding the advice of some of his fellow villagers, he decided to contest as an independent to
turn the contest into a candidate vs candidate fight, rather than All-Party-Supported-
Candidate vs Loksatta Party Candidate. This strategic move worked in his favor, by further
weakening the already weak candidate, as there will be no political parties’ role/support.

After deciding to contest as an independent candidate he decided to design a plan and

understand how people vote in a village setting. For three days, he has spoken to all wise
men, his relatives, and his supporters and gauged the pulse of how things work in local
elections. He came to know that to win, he has to reach out to the weaker sections, who are
the majority in number. He then strategically reached out to them, whom the heads of the
village have side-lined in choosing their candidate. He listened to their issues, problems and
chalked out carefully a "Village Manifesto", with all the realistic promises he would deliver if
they support him.

He then wrote an open letter to all the villagers, on how the opponent offered money, how
they threatened to boycott his family, how they are trying to buy votes of poor weaker
sections, and how he would solve their problems with his "Village Manifesto". He sent this
letter in form of postcards with a manifesto pamphlet attached, to every household. This step
gained him momentum and many young people came out publicly to support his campaign.

To raise his campaign’s momentum further, he then devised carefully a crowdfunding

campaign and reached out to his friends living abroad, his relatives, his colleagues, his
supporters for their support. He was able to raise Rs.1,00,000/- funds for his election
campaign; with which he was able to manage all the expenses, support his campaign team for
20days.

These strategic steps of making it a candidate vs candidate fight; reaching out to weaker
section who were in majority (which the village head excluded); designing a Village
Manifesto and sending it to every household with postcard campaign; and finally keeping the
campaign momentum high all through with support from crowd-funding; all these steps
played an important role for Raj Sekhar Varma in gaining his first-ever electoral success.

Having elected as the MPTC member, to contribute to his village, he has resigned from his
job as an Assistant Professor at GITAM University and transformed himself into a full-time
politician for his tenure of five years.

Challenges faced as MPTC:

 Blockage of Funds by Opponents at the Block/Mandal: Mr. Rajsekhar Varma has

only received Rs. 2 lakhs funds in total, for his entire five years' term as an MPTC
member. This is mainly due to; he is the only independent member in the Mandal
council and the distribution of funds is controlled by the ruling party members. (17
members are from the then ruling Telugu Desam Party, out of a total of 19 members)

 Blockage of Development by the opposition at the Village Level: The Village

Sarpanch of the ruling party, along with his party leaders at the village level, has

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 reportedly didn’t extend any support and even tried to block whichever initiative/
development activity proposed by Mr. Rajsekhar Varma.

Achievements as MPTC:

The work Mr. Rajsekhar Varma has done as an MPTC can been divided into three sections.
 Works he did with the government funding that came to him as an MPTC.
 Works he did with the authority that came with the MPTC position.
 Works he did with his personal leverage.

With MPTC funding:

 The Zonal Grant of Rs. 1 lakh received during the financial year 2015-2016 has been
used to renovate the fully abandoned foil shed in our Mandal Parishad Primary School
and make it suitable for conducting digital classes.
 With a grant of Rs. 1 lakh for the financial year 2017-2018, the bridge at Bhawanipeta
was approached on both sides, a red gravel path was laid on the way to the cemetery
on the opposite side of the Godarigattu and the panchayat well at the school was
repaired with cement.

With MPTC Authority:

 The Public Distribution System (PDS) has been streamlined by stopping the
manipulations in the ration shop that has been plaguing the villagers for decades, just
a week after taking responsibility.
 With his efforts and with the financial assistance of Rs 100,000/- by the Oil India
Company, the compound wall was constructed in the Mandal Parishad Primary
School.
 With his efforts and with the help of several individual donors, facilities for digital
classes were provided at the Mandal Parishad Primary School with funds of Rs.
2,00,000/-
 With his efforts Rs 35,000/- has been sanctioned by the government and the toilet has
been constructed along with the water supply at Government Primary School,
Bhavanipeta:
 He has successfully campaigned for CSR funding from Oil India and raised efforts to
secure CSR funds up to Rs. 2 crores for the village development.
 He has also successfully fought with Oil India, held a dharna, and secured 15 security
jobs for the village youth.
 Panchayat ponds were auctioned off with his efforts and secured revenues Rs 50,000/
- for the panchayat.

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  With his efforts Bank loans worth Rs 2 lakhs (subsidy of Rs. 1 lakh) and Rs 1 lakh
(subsidy of sixty thousand rupees) were sanctioned to Gada Lovaraju and Volupu
Ananta Lakshmi of the Yerakula community respectively. This is the first time in the
history of his region that loans have been sanctioned to beneficiaries belonging to the
Scheduled Tribes.
 With his efforts bank loans worth Rs 1,20,000/- and Rs. 50,000/- to Bommidi Srinu,
Beera Satyanarayana respectively.
 Protected Mudunuri Suryanarayana Raju’s 6 acres of arable land worth Rs 2 crore
from the local land mafia.
 Vaddi Lakshmi Kiranmayi, a 19-year-old orphan in T. Kottapalli village, who
inherited her father's property (83 cents of land worth Rs. 50 lakhs) saved from the
clutches of her aunts, and the relevant documents were prepared by the Government
Revenue Department.
 Provided free gas connections to 20 women in the village.
 With his efforts Madeti Nukambaram, a dairy farmer, gets Rs 150,000/- (Rs.
135,000/-subsidy) loan assistance in the construction of a cattle shed under the Mini
Gokulam Scheme.
 Apart from these, many local issues were resolved for the public by talking to the
concerned departments, and work was done expeditiously.

With personal funds/credit:

 He has been providing buttermilk at lunch every day to about 50 children studying in
Mandala Parishad Primary School.
 He secured a donation of Rs. 25,000/- from Rapaaka Roopa, USA, to villagers who
were affected by floods in 2016.
 He contributed Rs 10,000/- for digging boreholes, laying hand pump in Ganesh Nagar
Colony.
 He contributed Rs. 5,000/- for an orphan girl named Penki Sandhya to buy a bicycle.
 He gave 40 coconut plants from his garden free of cost for village income to
Ramalayampet.
 He provided a software job to a B. Tech student named Ramakrishna in
Visakhapatnam.
 He has nationalized (as part of the Land Acquisition deal offered by the government)
his one-acre coconut farm at Kamidivaripeta for the homeless poor.

Extracts from the interview with Mr. Rajsekhar Varma on 26th October 2020i:

Q: What drove you, motivated you to join full-time politics (filled with many struggles
and uncertainties), when you have a fairly stable academic career as Assistant
Professor?

RV: When I was, in my doctoral research in Germany, that was the time when the Loksatta
movement, by Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan, was inspiring many people. I used to follow him. So

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that was the starting point for me to think about politics in India and my area. When I moved
back to India in 2010, I decided to plunge into politics at some point in time, not directly,
because I know that it was not easy.

I had this practical bent of mind that, you know, getting into politics is not just like in any
other profession, you need a lot of work to do. And you need a lot of people's support
because of the kind of service that you're doing for the people; you have to have the support
of the same people that you're working for. So I was very clear about it.

I know that these normal traditional parties, if you want to join them, it's a different route. So
that would never work for me. That's the reason why I had to join Loksatta and I had to
support Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan’s endeavors in politics.

When I was back in India, I took my time to decide when is the right time right opportunity to
plunge into a political career. So within that short time, I understood that it's not that easy to
directly jump into it. So I thought maybe I prefer to spend some time in academics so that
that will bring me close to the students because they are the kind of a bridge between the
previous generation and the next generation. My academic career is anyway in a good
progress. So I took time and joined GITAM University. I joined there and continued with my
political ambitions. I used to teach during weekdays, travelled to Kakinada during weekends
and join my Loksatta team. This went on for three years.

When the opportunity strike, in the 2014 local body elections, I got the chance to contest in
the MPTC elections. At this point, I have approached Dr. JP seeking his advice, “whether
should I resign from my academic profession?” He said “No, your life matters, your career
matters. And this political service is only after your personal life and your career. Because
political service is something that you can do, when you're fulfilled with your basic personal
needs, your own career needs, and only after that you can serve others. So for those who can
serve the people, they have to have these basic things fulfilled”

A fortunate thing for me is that financially I'm okay. Because I don't have to be dependent on
my job in return. So I could able to risk that even if I lose the job, even if I have to quit the
job, I can still survive on my own my father's resources, and with the earnings that I had,
back in Germany. So that's a risk I took. And fortunately, and I had a partner, my wife also
supported me in this career, because she's also very idealistic in these aspects. She
wholeheartedly supported me at that time. So that was kind of an advantage for me to put my
job aside.

So finally, when people elected me, then I took a decision that I'm going to quit the job
within a year because this is a bigger responsibility. After all, I promised five years of service
to them. And I have to be here personally, in my village along with the people. So that's the
reason why I quit GITAM within a year of my election.

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Q: You have unsuccessfully contested in elections as a ward member in your village.
What were the important lessons you have learned from that experience?

RV: When I was preparing to contest for ward elections, there was a very unfortunate
situation at the time that my father expired. And that was a situation where I had to take a call
whether to contest this election or not because I didn't even complete my father's at his
funeral rituals.

I took a call and I failed the nomination. I campaigned only for one day, the last day of the
campaign. There are 50 to 60 households, with 200 votes, I just went and did a door to door
campaign. Also from childhood, I hardly stayed more than a couple of months in my village
continuously. So the people do not know completely about me. But I went through the door
to door campaign, and I just explained about myself and I asked them, they can if you want to
have me as your candidate as your representative, I can do these things.

After one year, this MPTC elections have come during which, that previous experience
during the Ward member elections helped me to connect to the people. It helped me to how to
approach the people; how to talk to them, and in planning what kind of message should I give
them.

Q: Can you give some clarity about MPTC member?

RV: Mandal is the same as the Block. The MPTC member means a member of the Mandal
Parishad Territorial Constituency. The MPTC member represents a territory (sometimes an
entire village if it is small, or part of a village if it is big) at the Mandal/Block Parishad
council.

Q: Despite being associated with Loksatta Party; you have contested as an Independent
candidate in MPTC elections? Why was that?

RV: It’s a part of the strategy. The heads of the village belonging to the Raju community
decided among themselves, a candidate to fight for this election. In the village the Raju's hold
the majority of agriculture lands and other caste members are dependent on them for their
livelihoods. I came to know that the other caste members are not happy with the candidate
chosen by the Raju's. The caste wise voters of the village are the Rajus were 700, the
Backward Castes (BC) were 800, the Schedule Castes (SC) were around 900. So, if the SCs,
BCs support me, the Raju candidate can easily be defeated. So, I approached them and tried
to convince them. But, they said they couldn't support publicly because most of them are
financially dependent on the Rajus and if I lose, they might have to face all the taunts by the
Rajus. They suggested me to contest as an independent candidate because then, they are free
to support as the contest will be between individuals and not on parties. So, I decided on the
last minute to contest as independent instead of the Loksatta tag.

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Q: When you announced in the village that you will be contesting the election, you
mentioned that the opponents have tried to threaten you, by saying they would boycott
your family functions, they offered you money to withdraw? Despite all that, you went
on to contest elections as an independent candidate, fighting all alone against the chosen
candidate by the village heads. What triggered you to contest and give them a fight?

RV: When I have announced my candidacy in MPTC elections, the opponent candidate has
visited our home. He offered me money to withdraw from elections, I said, “No, thank you”.
During the discussion, my helper was working in my home, he served tea for both of us. The
opponent candidate made a comment on this helper that, even your helper won't vote for you,
if you don't give him Rs. 500/- or Rs. 1000/-.

This remark hurt me. Why? Because it's like commenting about the helplessness of these
poor people. I mean, he is like degrading their character. Like, they will vote for anybody
who gives them money, and they will not show loyalty. It's like that you're saying that these
guys can be bought, and can be sold. That's the way he portrayed it. And that too in front of
him. So I was taken aback because, for me, I don't take such things easily when you comment
upon the helplessness of the poor people or their character. So, that night, I decided to find a
strategy and go for outright winning.

Q: What was your campaign strategy and how did you fund your campaign?

RV: After having discussions with villagers for three days, I was able to sense the important
issues grappling the village. Then I realized I should come up with a Village Manifesto, with
realistic promises on how will I solve those issues If I win. I took help from one of the
cousins in designing the election manifesto. Our election symbol is a "Broom" and our team
of 30 volunteers/ supporters wore this T-Shirt with the Broom symbol and then in 14 days,
we did door to door campaign three times and reached every voter in the Village. We have
also done a postcard campaign where we sent postcards with a letter and a copy of our village
manifesto to every household. I have decided to involve supporters from outside for funding
and reach out to friends, relatives, colleagues. We were able to raise just over Rs. 1,00,000/-
for the elections campaign. We used to put up all the updates every day on social media. We
have put up a good fight in terms of elections campaigning. The villagers supported us.

Q: What were your notable achievements as an MPTC?

RV: As an MPTC, I was only sanctioned Rs 2, 00, 000/- in five years’ term. With that, I was
able to renovate the Hall in the School, built a Culvert Bridge in the canal, lay a gravel road.
Also, the ruling party members including the sarpanch try to block funds at the Block/Mandal
level and they also tried to block the development activities at the village level. Despite all
that I was able to fight and mobilize Rs. 2 Crores CSR funds for the village development,
secured jobs for the local youth at the Oil India Company, and was also able to mobilize
funds worth 2 lakhs in building a digital classroom in the Government school.

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Apart from these, I was also able to make sure all the government schemes were well
implemented and no beneficiary is left out. I had made sure several bank loans were
sanctioned for the beneficiaries. Also, I enjoyed a good relationship with the government
officials, took the grievances of the local villagers to the departments, and made sure they
were resolved at the earliest.

Q: What’s your message for young aspiring politicians?

RV: Multiple aspects:

1. Youth should find their motivating factor, for me, when Loksabha speaker GMC
Balayogi, who also hails from our village was not be allowed into the temple, I was
agitated, it drove to fight against discrimination, also why should come, caste people,
all the resources, power, etc.? these factors triggered me to fight the status-co.; In this
way, youth should find their motivating factor.
2. Youth should have the grit, determination, resources, family support, community
(career), etc., the more support you have, the easier it gets.
3. Youth should be self-aware, of his strengths, weakness.; and your life-goals.
4. Youth should have a long term vision of themselves, they shouldn't sacrifice their
things, career. Because if they fail in politics, without a backup plan, it can backfire
entirely. Always there should be something to lean on.
5. The basic connectivity is the People’s aspirations and the person’s strength to serve
them.

What others say:

 Mortha Raghavulu, Husband of the former Sarpanch:

“whichever development Mr. Rajsekhar Varma has carried out in his tenure, he
didn’t do them all his own, the digital classroom in the village is supported (funded)
by many others like, Satish Garu through his foundation, other alumni of the school,
etc., even we were there also."

 Vegiraju Satish, local to the village who supported Rajsekhar Varma in

designing Village Manifesto:

“For many years, Peoples' basic needs like roads, drainages, drinking water, were
not addressed. People wanted an educated person as their representative and Raj
Varma educated abroad, returned to the village, and wanted to serve his villagers.
With his Village Manifesto, he was able to gain support from all the villagers.

Even after winning, he did his best for the village. He fought for CSR funds from Oil
India Company, even met District Collector, and secured Rs. 2 Crores for the village.
He also got job opportunities for local youth in Oil India. He did his best…”

 Security guard, Beneficiary:

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Lessons for the young aspiring politician:
 Successful pathway to politics from Academics.
 Importance of strategic planning to winning local body elections
 Connecting with people, understanding what they real problems, basic needs?
 Building a people centric, & development centric campaign.
 Designing a realistic “Village Manifesto”.
 Creating a crowd funding campaign with transparency and accountability.
Reflections: The sharp contrast between Raj Varma’s 1st election defeat in ward member
election, and thumping victory in the 2nd MPTC elections, makes me reflect that; “Being
idealistic alone isn’t enough to win elections” and winning elections is about number game;
One has to strategically-plan based on the
 demographic of voters;
 connect and communicating with the voters in the language they understand;
 build their trust;
 win their confidence;
 display your strength;
 garner support from all quarters;
 be resourceful;
Also, it appears that, it’s very important to understand the village dynamics of inter-
dependence of various caste groups, the local issues, their grievances.
As Raj Varma rightly pointed out, “the basic connectivity is the People’s aspirations and
the person’s strength to serve them”; the stronger this connectivity of the aspiring young
politician is, the stronger his/her success would be.
After winning, he didn’t settle. His burning desire to serve the community can be evident
from the number of small loans he was able to sanction, for the number of grievances he took
to the departments, for the number of RTIs he filed, for the number of sharp questions he
raised in the Block council meetings, for his fight in securing Rs. 2 Crore CSR funds, for his
dharna in securing 15 jobs for the local youth.
Despite the hurdles, despite the blockages, I believe he has fought the good fight harder,
stronger, fiercer, more passionately and compassionately than we would ever know.
It’s an extremely rare to find a foreign educated elected representative, passionately raising
laser sharp questions to block level government officials in their dusty offices and debating
on subjects of local governance, seeking responses on implementation of government
schemes at the grassroots levels.

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i
Interview with Shri Rajsekhar Varma by Indian School of Democracy, October 26 th 2020