Karnataka - Bangalore   

‘Middle class should vote in large numbers’

BANGALORE: Unless middle-class people come out to vote in large numbers, the merit of candidates contesting in the elections will not improve, Lokayukta N. Santosh Hegde has said. He was speaking at the inauguration of the South Circle Conference of the Bank of Maharashtra Officers’ Association.

“At present, the middle class does not matter to political parties because it does not vote, and is not the vote bank of any party. The parties will be compelled to nominate candidates who are good once the middle class starts voting in big numbers,” he said. On manifestoes released by the major political parties ahead of the Assembly elections, he said: “Parties have promised certain things that are not easy to implement or fiscally possible. These manifestoes are not meant for the middle class.”

A political party had promised to give television sets when there was power shortage in the State, he added.

The Lokayukta said that he had not found any difference between popular governance and bureaucratic rule.

“It is no more the rule of ‘by the people,’ but by a set of people involving politicians and bureaucrats. I have not found even a per cent difference between governance by a popular government and governance by bureaucrats,” he added.

Mr. Hegde released a collection of poems written by the association’s southern circle vice-president Suhas A. Deshpande.

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