Elections to the Bangalore City Corporations in 1996 provided an opportunity for PAC to initiate a unique exercise aimed at motivating citizens to cast informed votes. Owing to the widespread apathy of urban voters and the lack of information pertaining to the backgrounds of candidates contesting elections, the Centre initiated the “Choose the Right Councillor Programme”. The objective of the programme was to obtain and publicise background information about the contesting candidates, with the hope of stimulating voters to make informed choices.

Partner The campaign was initiated by PAC and supported by two local NGOs (Bangalore Environment Trust and CIVIC, Bangalore). Resident welfare associations and like-minded individuals were also involved as partners in this effort.

About the Campaign     PAC believed that the key partners could effectively translate the issues and ideas into strategic actions at the local level. Therefore, the whole effort was conceived and designed against the backdrop of empowering the resident groups to participate actively in the process.

• An open house was organised to motivate groups from different parts of the city to participate in the campaign.

• Resident groups collected information about each candidate such as his or her ward number, sources of income, property taxes, priorities for the ward, any criminal or corruption charges, etc.

• This experiment was conducted in eight wards and information about 100 candidates was compiled, analysed and disseminated through leaflets and neighbourhood newspapers.

• This whole exercise was documented as a film entitled Whose Vote is it Anyway?, to provide interesting and valuable insights on the conduct of the programme.

Impact What emerged from this experiment was the empowerment of civic groups vis-à-vis processes of governance. With active support and effective interventions from civil society organisations, citizens were able to infuse transparency and provide active participation in the electoral process. The unique exercise also inspired civil society organisations in other parts of the country, such as Mumbai and Chennai, to undertake similar initiatives.