Bengaluru: BJP wins third civic poll in a row

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah received a major setback on Wednesday after the Congress lost the Bengaluru municipal elections to rival Bharatiya Janata Party, which won 100 seats in the 198-member council.

This is the third major victory for the BJP after wins in civic polls held in two other States – Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh – this month.

A triumphant Prime Minister Narendra Modi reacting to the Bengaluru results tweeted: “after MP & Rajasthan, BBMP (Bruhut Bengaluru Mahanagar Palike) poll results complete a hat-trick of wins for BJP. This is a win for politics of development & good governance.”

The Congress won 76 seats, 10 more than it held in 2010, while the JD-S, led by former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda won 14. BJP won 11 less seats than it had won in 2010, but still managed to get a simple majority in the BBMP elections. The Congress, which was widely expected to win the elections and even led the exit polls, had predicted that the party would get a simple majority. At a news conference, Siddaramaiah denied that the results were a referendum on his governance.

“Can you call the victory for the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi, a referendum on the governance of Modi?” he said.

But political observers claim the civic poll results clearly show that Siddaramaiah is losing grip over State politics. Karnataka gets nearly 70 per cent of its revenue from Bengaluru, but the government has dragged its feet on developing infrastructure for the city. Its main arteries have seen clogged traffic while wastes pile up for days at the roadside even though according to a recent national survey, Bengaluru has been cited the ‘cleanest capital in the country’.

The metro train project, whose construction began over a decade ago covers a mere 20 km, out of the proposed 115 km route. Even though it was meant to ease traffic for lakhs of software engineers who daily commute to White Field as well as Electronic City, the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation has failed to construct even one line leading to either of these hubs.

Bengaluru has a population of around 11 milion and has about 5.5 million vehicles plying on its narrow roads.

A senior political analyst said Siddaramaiah had not found favour with a largely urban population in Bengaluru.

“They see him as anti-urban and perhaps that is the reason for his party’s defeat,” he said. He is very much unlike former Chief Minister and Congress leader SM Krishna, who was seen as extremely pro-educated class.

The Congress, which was not confident of its showing, had tried to stall the elections on several occasions. However, it was forced to hold the elections as early as possible after the Supreme Court set a deadline, rejecting its plea for more time for the delimitation of the wards as per the 2011 Census.

The Congress had suggested that the BBMP should be split into three civic authorities as the city had become too big to be managed by a single entity.

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