Cutting across party lines, Bangalore Political Action Committee (B.PAC) has endorsed 28 MLA aspirants out of a total of 438 candidates in the fray in the city. Eight are from the BJP, 12 from the Congress, three from AAP, one from JD(S), 22 independents and one each from Swaraj India and Pyramid Party of India (PPI).
Some of the prominent candidates endorsed are ministers K.J. George, Krishna Byre Gowda, Ramalinga Reddy, and MLAs N.A. Haris, Dr. C.N. Ashwanth Narayan and S. Suresh Kumar.
BPAC has excluded Anekal since it is not entirely urban, and Jayanagar where the elections have been countermanded for now. Of this, BPAC has found candidates worthy of their endorsement in only 18 constituencies. In several constituencies, it has endorsed more than one candidate ( see table ).
“Endorsement of a candidate was decided after a thorough appraisal process, which included five elimination criteria, like serious criminal offences, and five approval criteria, like accessibility to the public, along with the objective BPAC score card of incumbent MLAs,” said Revathy Ashok, CEO, BPAC. It has started a Know Your Candidate feature on its website to help voters before voting.
