Bengaluru: Corrupt, beware! AAP takes on 3 C's
Party announces first list of 18 candidates, Devaraj Urs' grandson to contest from K.R. Puram.
Bengaluru: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) announced its first list of 18 candidates for the Karnataka Assembly elections on Tuesday. Elections to the 224 assembly constituencies are likely to be held in May.
Of the 18 candidates, nine belong to Bengaluru, while the rest are from other parts of the state. “The party is planning to field as many candidates as possible if it finds the right people to contest,” said Prithvi Reddy, AAP convener, Karnataka.
Some of the prominent candidates from the first list are Prithvi Reddy, Renuka Viswanathan, a retired IAS officer, Santhosh Nargund, an aeronautical engineer and RTI activist, Malavika Gubbivani, an IT professional, and Lingaraj Urs, businessman and grandson of former CM D. Devaraj Urs.
Announcing the list of candidates, AAP National Secretary Pankaj Gupta said, “People in the state are depressed because of high levels of corruption, lack of governance and farmer suicides under the present government."
He said that AAP is against 3Cs that is corruption, communal and criminal. “We will do a thorough background check on the 3Cs before issuing tickets to our candidates,” he said.
Prithvi Reddy said that the idea behind contesting elections is to fight against corruption and bad governance under the present government.
Mr Lingaraj Urs, who will contest from K.R. Puram, told Deccan Chronicle, “This is the first time I am contesting, and I want to bring in development to my constituency, which is deprived of it.” He said the K.R. Puram constituency lacks emergency hospitals and people have to go to Hebbal or Whitefield for treatment.
Renuka Viswanathan, who will contest from Shanthinagar, said, “I have been campaigning for the last two months and the response is good. N.A. Haris (the present Congress MLA) has done nothing for this constituency till now. There is a high level of corruption in the state. I have been asking people in my constituency how much they paid to get their income certificates, and many told me that they have paid Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000. We are also looking at eradicating corruption.”