Tanmay Mandal and Samprati Moghare competed with 29 other IIM-Calcutta students for the internship with Trinamool Congress.
While most management grads are beating a path to corporate doors for internships, two students from IIM Calcutta have just started interning with the Trinamool Congress party.
And why is that?
Well one believes that if he can sell ideas... like political parties do, then selling soap will be easy-peasy. The other doesn't want to be a CEO. He wants to be a politician, and yes, with the TMC.
The duo, who will graduate from IIM-C in April, visited TMC Bhavan, the Trinamool headquarters in Kolkata, for the first time on Saturday to soak in the atmosphere.
Asked why he chose to intern with a political party, Samprati Moghare of Bhilai, Chattisgarh, said, "To sell political ideas to the people which I think is a very difficult task. So if I can succeed in selling an idea, it will probably be much easier to sell a product like soap."
For Tanmay Mandal, the internship was a chance to work with a party he admires. "The thing is that we need to communicate to the people, the electorate of this state, and that's why we are here. We are here to communicate to the people the success story of the government in the last 34 months."
Samprati and Tanmay didn't just waltz into Trinamool. They had to compete with 29 other IIM-C students for the internship.
One week into their assignment, the Mamata Banerjee bug seems to have truly bitten Tanmay who is headed for Dubai to work with an MNC soon after the IIM-C convocation on 5th April.
"I've been following Mamata Banerjee since my childhood and I am really impressed with her," he says.
So does he want to join the party? With a big smile on his face, Tanmay says, "If she gives me an opportunity, I am ready to join her today!"
But what's in it for Trinamool? A non political perspective - something they got with IIM-C interns during the 2011 Assembly polls. And certainly, converts to their cause - total converts like Tanmay and also people like Samprati who can espouse the party's cause in the corporate world in the years to come.