Bengaluru pros blow civic poll bugle

Ask citizens if they are happy with the civic services provided by their municipal body and you will probably hear a tirade of complaints. In Bengaluru, a few progressive professionals have taken matters into their own hands and are set to fight the civic elections early next year to “set an example on good governance”.

The Bengaluru NavaNirmana Party (BNP) was formed a year ago by an investment banker and IIM-B alumnus, Srikanth Narasimhan, and boasts in its governing council people like Sridhar Ramanujan, founder of communications consultancy Brand Comm and also an IIM-B alumnus, and R Balasubramanian, a former director of Sankara Netralaya, among others.

“There is a real problem with governance and accountability in Bengaluru today. We said that if we care about our city, let’s do something,” says Sridhar. But do the poll novices have the stomach to enter the fierce world of electioneering?

The background

Narasimhan points to the background behind this attempt. Some years ago, when the government came up with inexplicable rules for apartments in the city, it led to the birth of the Bangalore Apartments Federation. The federation, in which he is a moving force, got over 10,000 apartment dwellers across the city to stage a protest march. It worked.

“As we kept on fighting,” says Narasimhan, “we realised only two things get work done — either a protest march with thousands of people, or a court order.” But both are cumbersome. That’s when the idea of floating a full-fledged party came up.

He says today the federation has over 6 lakh members, and he has built a strong connect with RWAs and activist groups such as Whitefield Rising and Citizens of Bengaluru.

Narasimhan says BNP’s focus is simple — it is exclusively on municipal governance and the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). It will not fight Assembly elections. “We are hoping this single-minded focus will help us take it to the next level,’ says Sridhar.

Currently, the party has more than 3,000 people with more joining in. However, Narasimhan admits the BNP will be able to contest only about 100 of the 200 wards in Bengaluru. “Our objective is to try and win at least 25 wards,” he says.

Party for all

Although it may seem like a party of “software types”, both Sridhar and Narasimhan say it is by no means elitist and the chosen candidates will have grassroots appeal.

For each ward, the issues taken up will be different but cutting across the city the party is fighting on three uniform promises. First is transparency. It has already gathered data on 63,629 projects approved by the BBMP over the last five years and put them up on a citizen’s portal. The second is citizen participation. The third is that work will get done without money being siphoned off.

What about resources to fight the election? “We don’t need crores, only a few lakhs,” asserts Narasimhan.

In 2015, similarly fed up with civic services, a garment firm’s CSR wing won the panchayat elections in Kizhakkambalam village in Kerala. But such non political party wins are rare. Can the BNP make a dent?

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