KANPUR, Feb 12: Entrepreneurs here have taken a lead in organising a new kind of election campaign. Under the aegis of the Merchants Chamber of Commerce, industrialists organised an open house here, where all the key contestants of major political parties of Kanpur city and semi-urban Bilhaur constituencies were invited to address and answer the questions of the people.And to top it all, the programme was telecast live on cable channels.Mahendra Mohan, former president of Kanpur Industrial Junior Chamber of Commerce, compered the programme. He set the ground rules -- no personal question, no counter question, no indecent question.
And to avoid confusion, printed sheets were given to write the questions, which the compere read out and occasionally, to make the programme lively, asked the questioner to read it out.
The compere was assisted by city journalist, M A Naqvi, and entrepreneur Raghvendra Garg. The candidates included Jagatvir Singh Dron, Shyam Behari Mishra (BJP), H K Srivastava and SurendraMohan Agarwal (SP), Bhudhar Narain Mishra and Sri Prakash Jaisawal (Congress), Pawan Gupta, Rajaram Pal (BSP).
A few got provoked by the questions. The BJP candidates were cornered on the Ayodhya issue and their approach on swadeshi. The Congress candidates were grilled largely on the issue of corruption and why they had to take shelter under a foreigner.
Many smaller issues of local import were also raised and the audience seemingly were satisfied with the replies. A hotelier, Mohan Ramchandani, said such programmes should be repeated before the February 16 polling to have a better understanding of the parties and candidates.
The candidates were happy that in an era of increasing election expenses this was the cheapest and most effective way of reaching out to the electorate.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
