Graduate voters should pick their Legislative Council representative on merit — efficiency, experience and the ability to raise their issues — and not on caste, creed or religion, MLA Sudhir Mungantiwar said here.
He was speaking at a 'Samvad Setu' programme at Somayya Polytechnic College, held to campaign for Sudhakar Kohale, the BJP-Mahayuti's official candidate in the Nagpur graduates' constituency. Mungantiwar urged graduates to elect Kohale with a majority in the 23 October poll.
Also present were BJP district president Harish Sharma, general secretary Dr Mangesh Gulwade, Somayya Group chairman P. S. Ambatkar, vice-chairman Piyush Ambatkar, director Ankita Ambatkar and principal Liaqat Ali.
A graduates' constituency election is different from other polls, Mungantiwar said. The Constitution gave graduates representation through the Legislative Council. Their representative is not just a member of the House but a link who discusses society's basic issues, including education, and pushes the government towards decisions, he said.
Kohale, he said, has Legislative Assembly experience and the ability to raise graduates' issues effectively. Given representation from the graduates' constituency, education and graduate-related issues could be raised more forcefully, Mungantiwar said.
Education, he said, is a powerful medium of personal progress and social change. He cited his record as finance minister: efforts to start a government engineering college in Chandrapur, bringing an agriculture college, an SNDT centre coming up on 50 acres for women's education, recognition won for a government nursing college, and a bid to bring a BDS college next year.
If students face any problem over education in the future, "we will stand firmly behind them for their educational rights," Mungantiwar assured.
He also had a practical word for voters: exercise your franchise on 23 October, and take care that your vote is recorded accurately and does not turn invalid.