Karnataka assembly elections: for clean politics, Kiran Shaw panel backs 14 candidates

Bangalore: The Bangalore Political Action Committee or BPAC, set up and headed by Biocon's Kiran Mazumdar Shaw to try for cleaner governance, today announced a list of 14 candidates in Bangalore that they are endorsing ahead of the Karnataka Assembly elections, to be held on May 5. The candidates were selected based on criteria that included education and a clean record.

The list is a short one. Just 14 names from the hundreds of candidates contesting from Bangalore were deemed worthy of support by the BPAC.

Managing Trustee and Director of BPAC, Kiran Mazumdar, told NDTV what the team was looking for in their chosen candidates. "The lack of criminal record, their capability, their credibility...Over and above that we sent a very, very concise question and answer to each one of these probables saying: What is your commitment, what are your measures, what is your vision and what is your plan for the Bangalore agenda. How will you address drinking water and power shortage? How will you address garbage management? How will you address the roads and infrastructure?... And then basically arrived at just these handful of candidates."

The list includes members from all major parties and covers a wide variety of contestants.

From Dr Meenakshi Bharath of the Loksatta party, a solid waste management campaigner and first time entrant, to Suresh Kumar, the BJP's law minister and a man with a clean image - a rarity in the scam-ridden party in the state, and Dinesh Gundu Rao, son of former Congress chief minister, Gundu Rao.

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BPAC's vice president Mohandas Pai stressed that the group has no political affiliations or preferences. "Yes, we are agnostic to political parties and there are good people in all parties. And what our selection criteria has proved is that there are good people in all political parties."

Dr Shaw explained how BPAC would help the candidates the team has endorsed.

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"Well right now we want to basically make a token contribution of 5 lakhs to each endorsed candidate in each constituency. In some of the constituencies there is more than one candidate. In fact we have two candidates in two constituencies and to those we will give three lakhs each. The symbolism is more important because this is a symbolic contribution where we are trying to legitimise funding," he said.

BPAC has been called elitist by its critics - it is composed of individuals who are largely supremely successful and well to do. BPAC argues it is indeed trying to reach out to the urban middle class - traditionally apathetic when it comes to elections and a group ignored by political parties.

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Will their endorsement matter in the rough and dirty world of Indian politics? BPAC hopes it will.