National

The Click In The Ballot

How a Bangalore online campaign fared in the polls

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The Click In The Ballot
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With more than 9,500 ‘likes’ on its Facebook page and 650 followers on Twitter, the Ban­g­alore Political Action Committee (BPAC) has made some success of its initiative to promote and sustain good governance practices and policies for economic com­petitiveness, social well-being and inc­l­usive growth in the city. In the recent Karnataka elections, BPAC vetted CVs and listed 14 can­d­idates—Bangalore city has 28 assembly seats—for whom people should vote. These were of literate individuals without criminal records, well-known in their fields. The choice cut across party lines. Five of them won.

While it cannot be said that the endorsement by BPAC was a major factor in their victory, the online effort may have had some impact. Headed by Biocon owner Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, BPAC has some other eminent members too: danseuse Vani Ganapathy, swimmer Nisha Millet, K. Jairaj (a former bureaucrat), adman Stanley Pinto and cricket commentator Charu Sharma, among others.

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Is there anything in the Bangalore effort that the Aam Aadmi Party could imitate? A senior leader from AAP welcomes such initiatives but adds that as a registered political party, their path is different. “We must all stand together to move towards a clean and accountable government and politics. Comparing us with BPAC is not the right way to look at us. This is because they are a civil society group, whereas we are a political party,” he says. For what began as a movement against corruption, the transformation is complete.

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