BENGALURU: With an entrepreneur, a techie, retired IAS officer, a former employee of an oil company in the middle-east, and so on figuring on it, the list of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidates is unique to say the least. With no experience in politics, these professionals from various fields are trying to make their way into the state legislature after the upcoming election, “in the interest of the people”.Meet Raghavendra Thane, an MBA with an engineering degree in Electrical and Electronics. He owns an ice-cream manufacturing factory.
What started as a unit that sold from just one outlet, has grown exponentially, with his Thancos brand of natural ice cream selling from 64 outlets across the country to a multi-crore turnover. The 40-year-old entrepreneur is contesting from Hebbal. “I took to politics as I was inspired by the ideologies of AAP,” he says.Raghavendra had earlier contested the Lok Sabha election from Uttara Kannada in 2014. He hails from Sirsi.
Mohan Dasari (35), a techie, is contesting from C V Raman Nagar. He had contested from Ballari as Independent in 2013, and in 2014, he contested from the Chitradurga Lok Sabha seat. An engineering graduate, his “passion” is social service. “If we get power as an MLA, we can do a lot of good,’’ he says. Ask him why C V Raman Nagar, and Mohan says it is because of the large number of techies who reside here.
Retired IAS officer and first woman DO from Karnataka, Renuka Vishwanathan (69) is the AAP contestant against Congress candidate N A Haris in Shantinagar. She started her campaign only a few months ago. As an IAS officer of the 1971 batch, Karnataka cadre, she served as secretary at the Rashtrapati Bhavan before retiring a few years back.
“In my 37 years as a civil servant, I have seen many party leaders. Corruption is rampant,’’ she said
S G Sitharam, who worked with oil companies in middle-east countries for 25 years, is a resident of Girinagar and is contesting from Basavanagudi. In 2014, he worked in Syria. To campaign for Nina Nayak, former commissioner of Child Rights Commission, who contested Bengaluru South LS seat, Sitharam had taken leave for two months.