Kalam's 30:70 mantra for political parties

MUMBAI: President A P J Abdul Kalam on Tuesday exhorted political parties to devote more time to "developmental politics" rather than concentrating on winning elections.

To a query by a student of Mumbai University on the occasion of the institution's 150th year celebration, Kalam said "political parties should be 30 per cent political and 70 per cent developmental. But in our country it is just the opposite. They should concentrate on making India a developed nation by 2020."

Kalam, who visibly enjoyed his interaction with students of the university, also stressed the need to lift people from the drudgery of poverty and remove social injustices, still prevalent in the country.

When asked when the country would get a "set of qualified politicians to run the country", the President joined in the ensuing laughter from the audience, saying "It is up to the voters to elect qualified, educated people to run the country. But recently the number of educated and well qualified politicians has increased."

Congratulating the Mumbai University on completing 150 years, he said "this university must have produced millions of engineers, scientists and leaders in other fields over the years. I congratulate all the teachers who have been responsible for this."

The University presented scroll of honours to 15 eminent citizens including industrialist Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of HDFC Deepak Parekh, flute maestro Hari Prasad Chaurasia, and cartoonist R K Laxman, to mark the occasion.