How to assess MLA candidates?

By Srinivas Alavilli

Young voters seem to be a lot more interested in the profile of the candidates. They want to choose the candidate based on merits of the individual, track record and potential for bringing change. Unfortunately, most MLA candidates cannot be found on LinkedIn and it takes some effort to get to know them better.

Is your current MLA one of the candidates? You must check his/her track record in the state assembly, first and foremost. Did the MLA participate actively in assembly sessions? What is the attendance record? What questions did the MLA formally ask the government? Were those questions in public interest? Did he represent issues of citizens in the constituency?

Visit the official website: https://kla.kar.nic.in/assembly/assembly.htm.

Read | Election FAQs: How to use postal ballots to cast votes?

Affidavits have become a key part of every election. All candidates are supposed to declare their assets, profession, educational qualifications, and criminal record. The election commission makes them publicly available at affidavit.eci.gov.in - many organisations such as ADR (adrindia.org) have been doing phenomenal job with this information.

Deccan Herald and Prajavani have been publishing engaging ground reports that bring different perspective alive bringing lot of useful information from the ground through their short videos that bring different perspectives. Check them out at: https://www.youtube.com/DeccanHerald

Search for candidate’s name on YouTube and Google News to locate past speeches, recent news items and any other content that gives you a glimpse of the personality. Few candidates have websites these days but most of them have active accounts on social media. Once you find such accounts, look for what kind of information is being shared, if there is genuine engagement and indication of genuine interest in governance.

Civil Society organisations made great strides this year in creating awareness about local issues, publishing citizen manifestos, engaging with political parties and candidates. You can find details about constituency, electoral history and comparison of candidates without much effort. Reap Benefit, a social tech NGO is operating a Citizen War Room and a WhatsApp Chatbot exclusively for first time voters of Karnataka.

All of us do research before choosing a phone. For choosing an MLA who will be responsible for lakhs of crores of public money over next five years, some research is imperative.

(The writer is a citizen activist.)