BBMP polls: Doctor puts his vote up for sale online, urges people to follow suit

Bengaluru: How can a citizen ensure free and fair elections and bring every middle-class person out to vote? A city-based doctor, Dr Anand Lakshman, has the answer. Dr Anand, who is the Founder and CEO of AddressHealth, wants to make sure the governance of the state is not taken over by rowdy sheeters and the uneducated. So he has decided to sell his vote online.

Dr Anand was earlier working with the World Health Organization as a Medical Consultant. Recently, while campaigning for a local candidate, Dr Anand was finding it very hard to carry out his campaign duties at a particular ward because of rampant vote-buying and other forms of corruption ahead of the corporation elections this Saturday.

“Vote buying at this time is very common and it is illegal but the police won't take notice and see what is happening at the ground level,” says an exasperated Dr Lakshman. He adds, “Unalloyed corruption ensures that the good, educated and promising candidates are beaten at the elections by these powerful mainstream parties because of ‘note’ power and money power.”

Frustrated at the sad state of affairs prevalent during election time, the doctor out of desperation decided to put his vote on sale. His online announcement went as follows: “Vote for BBMP election on sale”. The announcement also clearly states the price as ‘Rs 10,000’ for his vote.

The doctor is spearheading a campaign with the Loksatta Party to highlight rampant vote- buying during elections. “So I have put my vote for sale on quikr and other volunteers are going to do the same. We will be willfully violating the People’s Representation Act,” states the doctor, who is clearly expecting a change. “If votes are being bought, why can’t the middle class sell them on quikr or olx!”

Also, getting the middle-class to get out of their lethargy, shake off their indifference and go to vote on a Saturday, is another aim of this unique move. “I want to also highlight the apathy of the middle-class who have a very low connect with the parties. They feel their vote would anyway not make much of a difference and so they would rather go on vacation over a weekend getaway than vote,” adds the doctor.

Explaining the reason for the vote sale the post reads, ‘All scams in the BBMP total up to Rs 5,000 crores, that is Rs 250 crore per ward. You need 5,000 votes to win a ward. So in an investment of Rs 5 crore, the winner can make up to Rs 250 crore over 5 years.”

He continued, “In an average ward which consists of 30,000 votes and has a turnout of 15,000 votes, there is a small margin of 5,000 to 7000 votes to win. Which is a very small margin, and this forces the powerful parties to buy votes,” explains Dr Anand, who says that this move would prod people as well as the police to look at realities at the ground level.