By IANS
Bangalore : Over 80 aspirants to a seat in the Mysore city corporation took an eligibility test organised by a non-governmental organisation – the first such in the country for aspiring poll candidates.
The Common Eligibility Test, held in the city of palaces Sunday, lasted two hours during which aspirants had to answer objective-type questions, write a 100 word piece on the problems of Mysore and fill in the blanks with appropriate words.
The election expenditure of first 10 ‘rank holders’ from the CET will be met by the test organisers, Association of Concerned and Informed Citizens of Mysore (ACICM), said its convener K. Lakshmana.
There is no guarantee that political parties will select those who pass the test as their candidates, but “indirectly they may consider supporting some of them”, Lakshmana told IANS over phone from Mysore.
There were three retired professors, six engineering graduates and eight law graduates among the aspirants who wrote the test, Lakshmana said.
The results of the 100-mark test, written by 85 people including 30 women, will be announced Tuesday, he said. For a pass minimum 35 marks are necessary.
Among the questions was “How much money do you intend to make during your tenure as a corporator?” The options given were Rs.1 million, Rs.2 million, Rs.6 million or Rs.20 million.
There are 65 seats in the Mysore city corporation, polls for which will be held on Sep 28 along with over 200 urban local bodies across Karnataka.
“None of the former corporators took the test,” Lakshmana said, adding that their response to the exercise was “who are these people to conduct it”?
The ACICM was set up in 2005 and has been working for a better Mysore, said Lakshmana, a postgraduate in engineering and founder principal of Karnataka Regional Institute of Engineering.