Development Minister KJ George, MLA NA Haris top Bangalore-based citizen group ratings

BENGALURU: Thought the Farzi cafe incident might have dented beleaguered MLA N A Haris’ image, it was him who scored the highest in a MLAs’ rating compiled by a citizen group.

The ratings were compiled by Bangalore Political Action Committee (B.PAC), a Bengaluru-based citizen group. MLAs from 27 Assembly constituencies of Bengaluru were rated on eight parameters. B.PAC Vice-President T V Mohandas Pai said the ratings were not a measure of how good or bad an MLA was, but were only reflections of certain parameters.

“The ratings are academic, not qualitative. We are not making value judgements, do not look at this as a rating of MLAs’ integrity. There are some duties the MLAs are expected to carry out and we have considered those as parameters,” he said.

Among the five Ministers rated, Development Minister K J George scored the highest with 87 and Housing Minister M Krishnappa had the lowest score of 51. Among the other MLAs, Shantinagar MLA N A Haris topped with a score of 84, followed by Hebbal MLA Y A Narayanaswamy and Mahalakshmi Layout MLA K Gopalaiah, both with scores of 78. The lowest scorers were CV Raman Nagar MLA S Raghu — 32, Chickpete MLA R V Devraj — 38 and Bommanahalli MLA Sathish Reddy — 40.

Two of the MLAs, R Ashoka and B A Basavaraja, were found to have serious criminal cases against them. Only cases of a serious nature were considered for the ratings. Elaborating on how people could perceive this parameter, Pai said, “N A Haris does not have any criminal case against him, but when people go to vote they might remember claims that he delayed his son’s arrest post the Farzi cafe incident or that he allegedly tried to use his influence.”

As per data collected for the ratings, nine MLAs scored 75 per cent and above, 10 scored between 50 and 75 and eight scored below 50 per cent. A total of 262 starred questions and 3,356 unstarred were asked by the city MLAs during 16 Assembly sessions. Two MLAs have four criminal cases each. A total of 18 MLAs have spent over 95 per cent of the MLALAD funds allocated to them, while three have spent 90-95 per cent of it.

Three MLAs are postgraduates, 17 are graduates, two have cleared until PUC and five have cleared class X. Every MLA has cleared at least class X. All MLAs have public pages on social media, which was also one of the parameters for the ratings.

Pai appealed all citizens to vote and said an independent group would also evaluate the qualitative performance of MLAs and endorse particular MLAs later this month. “B.PAC will give a cheque of Rs 2.5 lakh to the endorsed MLAs, because campaigning requires money, and MLAs might resort to getting black money for the purpose,” he added.

Parameters for rating: