PM Narendra Modi’s promise to decongest Bengaluru a shot in arm for BJP

BENGALURU: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise to decongest Bengaluru in the next 40 months has buoyed the ruling BJP, which has been struggling to set a narrative for fastapproaching Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and next year’s assembly elections.
That Modi made it a point to go into details of infrastructure projects for the capital has increased the confidence of BJP legislators from the city and party aspirants for the BBMP polls. Saffron party MLAs say they expect the political impact of the promise to be “huge”.
“Promises are made by every political leader who comes to power, but when PM Modi makes them, people tend to believe it,” said Uday Garudachar, BJP Chickpet MLA. “This automatically has a significant impact on voters and will definitely prove beneficial for us. ” Satish Reddy, party chief whip and Bommanahalli MLA, said the PM’s promise also encompassed the Peripheral Ring Road (PRR) project, which he claimed is “now on track”.
“Besides the larger issue of decongestion, the PM’s statement also comes in the wake of significant progress being made on completing the PRR, which has been long pending,” Reddy said. “This being the case, Modi’s statement which dwells on details of plans being drawn up to decongest the city will help us immensely in elections. ”
However, some functionaries say the PM’s promise will only fructify if there is proper allocation of funds by the Centre. “While larger projects will be spoken about and dwelt upon, wards require regular and equitable allocation of funds to maintain roads and other infrastructure to avoid congestion,” said one BJP MLA.
Some BJP legislators allege the disparity in allocation of funds is extremely high, with a few “select” MLAs getting Rs 400 crore for their segments, while others get only Rs 140 to Rs 160 crore. Meanwhile, Congress dismissed PM Modi’s statements, labelling them as yet another ‘jumla’ (false promise).
“The PM is known to make such election-centric statements. This is no different,” said Rizwan Arshad, Shivajinagar MLA. “People know that his words are hollow and do not translate well on the ground. If there was any intent to decongest Bengaluru, then why was the suburban rail project pending for the past 40 months?”