Former Infosys CFO V Balakrishnan, or ‘Bala’, who is contesting from Bangalore North, is perhaps among the AAP’s richest candidates.
In an interview with K Giriprakash , Bala shared his views on the political climate in the country and how his party can bring about a change.
I think it is more about an idea about honest, clean governance and reduction of crony capitalism. And also the people because quality of people is very important. If good people go to Parliament, then the quality of decisions taken in Parliament becomes better. Therefore it is both about parties and individuals.
Assuming your former colleague Nandan Nilekani wins from Bangalore South, it will more likely be a personal victory than the party because of the general anti-Congress wave sweeping the country. Therefore, how would you rate your chances?
If you look at the idea of AAP, with its focus on clean and honest governance, it appeals to a lot of people.
We are putting up clean candidates and such decisions make the voters much more confident of electing the right candidates.
There is a lot of anger within the population and they want change. The elections till now have been fought on three things: money, muscle power and caste.
We are not going to fight elections on any of these. Hopefully, our stand will attract more and more people and they are definitely going to embrace us.
Apparently, it took a lot of persuasion on the part of AAP to make you contest the elections. What did Arvind Kejriwal tell you which made you to agree to contest the elections?
We have been talking about this for quite some time. They said they want good people to come into the system and change it rather than be outside the system. I agreed with that line of thinking because it is easy to sit outside and criticise the system.
But AAP is considered more of a party of activists…
Most revolutions happen in any country through activism. Once they establish themselves as responsible political parties, all those issues will go away. Today, they (AAP) are in a transition phase so people think they are anarchists. There is a huge amount of legacy in the system. You have to change it, do it in an unconventional way. For some people it may look like anarchy but that is the only way to do it.
So, what are the lessons from Infosys that you are going to bring into play to fight the elections? There are pockets of the electorate which have been constantly fed with money to buy votes… How are you going to tackle that?
I think the only way to work around it is to keep meeting people. Everyone accepts that AAP is the right platform to address their grievances.
It is necessary to go and explain to the people how we plan to tackle a lot of ills in the society. You see, awareness is pretty high. Some people thought that money is the easiest way to buy votes. But the Delhi experiment has disproved that. Delhi has, in fact, shown the way. Look at our fund raising plans. We are going to be as transparent as possible.
Almost 70 per cent of the funds raised so far are from unknown sources. But we are going to show the way. This way, most political parties too will change.
Sometime ago, you said you will support Nilekani if he contests the elections. Is he going to support you too even though both of you are from different parties? What about Mohandas Pai?
I hope so. Pai agrees with whatever I am doing and he will surely support me.
What about Infoscians? Will your former colleagues campaign for you?
I have been receiving several messages from them. They want to come and help me in whatever way possible.