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

“I had always wanted to work with political parties and be activelyinvolved in politics. So far even as a student I had been trying my hand atpolitics in several ways. Now, I wish to get fully involved in politics whichis why I opted out of placements this year in spite of having couple of offersin hand. I personally wish to work Congress general secretary RahulGandhi," 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 PublicPolicy Group (PPG) course, for which a team of seven students were assisted byMembers of Parliament (MPs) like Sitaram Yechury, Madhusudan Mistry and HarinPathak to formulate a framework for constituency management programme, lastyear.

Under the PPG course, Singh, and his batchmates, also developed an informationand communication technology (ICT) system under which citizens in severalconstituencies could register their complaints with their respective MPsthrough an interactive voice response system (IVRS) and avail prompt responsefrom respective departments.

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

This year, around seven students have opted out of final placements at IIM-Aincluding Srijan. Another final year PGP student, V Krishnakanth, 24, hasdecided to set up his own career consulting firm to coach eng0ineeringundergraduates for post graduate entrance exams. "Coaching is a very fragmentedmarket and I observed that students rarely get all kinds of coaching at oneplace. Using my education at IIM-A, I will be coaching them on how to crackseveral entrance exams. While currently I will be focusing on engineeringundergraduates, later on I will also train Std. XII students for SAT,"said Krishnakanth.