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BANGALORE: The Bangalore Political Action Committee (B.PAC), a citizens’ collective, on Thursday endorsed 12 candidates in Bangalore North, South and Central parliamentary constituencies in the coming Lok Sabha elections. The candidates have been fielded by the four major parties- Congress, BJP, JD(S) and AAP.
“We were pleasantly surprised at the quality of candidates. All of them met the endorsement criteria, including their record of public service, educational background, criminal records, filing I-T returns, history of abuse against women, knowledge of governance and record of misuse of public office for personal gains,” said Harish Bijoor, member, B.PAC.
B.PAC will give Rs 4 lakh to each endorsed candidate. It will also deploy its 100-odd volunteers to help them with the campaign and also promote them through social media, radio and TV.
“It was important to endorse each of them as they would bring different perspectives that are important to the city,” said Revathy Ashok, managing trustee, B.PAC.
“We have shortlisted 12 out of 63 candidates and made it easy for the public. Now, it is their duty to choose the right candidate,” said Mohandas Pai, vice-president, B.PAC.
B.PAC’s pick: BJP’s H N Ananth Kumar, D V Sadananda Gowda and PC Mohan and C Narayanswamy (Congress) were endorsed for political experience. Congressmen Nandan Nilekani and Rizwan Arshad and AAP’s V Balakrishnan and Babu Mathew scored for new ideas, transparency, accountability and good governance. Nina P Nayak of AAP and Abdul Azeem, Ruth Manorama and Nandini Alva of the JD(S) were picked for their focus on women’s empowerment, safety and ideas to unleash creative potential.
