Karnataka elections 2023 news: A harbinger of development or pure political optics?

SHIVAMOGGA: More than 15 years after it was proposed, the greenfield airport in Shivamogga’s Sogane village was inaugurated amid much fanfare by PM Narendra Modi on February 27, but the swanky facility largely resembles a ghost town. The only planes that have landed here are Modi’s — on inauguration day — and when he participated in a party function in Davanagere in March, besides an aircraft carrying CM Basavaraj Bommai and three IAF flights.
The airport has now become a poll issue. Congress had alleged that the airport was hurriedly inaugurated just before the election. It even demanded that the Election Commission cover its lotus-shaped roof, claiming it was a poll code violation. While it’s not unusual for governments to hastily inaugurate projects in an election year, the question that hangs over Shivamogga is whether the city needed an airport at all, given that most existing airports in the state, barring Bengaluru and Mangaluru, don’t report high traffic or make profits. But former chief minister BS Yediyurappa, who was instrumental in ensuring the town got the airport — it was inaugurated on his 80th birthday — and his MP son BY Raghavendra describe it as a “harbinger of development”. ‘Won’t be concrete museum’ Quick to brush aside notions that the airport would turn into what he called a “concrete museum”, Raghavendra told TOI: “There are several airports that have taken time to become operational. In fact, Kalaburagi airport took over two years. But this airport will not become a concrete museum. Commercial operations will begin within a week.
The airport has clearance from DGCA and received the international code (ICAO).” He said an airline has offered to operate two trips to and from the airport each day, and sought a subsidy of Rs 500/per seat which has been approved by the state government. “The airport will boost Shivamogga’s tourism in future,” he said. Locals don’t share Raghavendra’s enthusiasm. Given the long delay in implementation, far mers whose lands were acquired 15 years ago received meagre compensations and are still awaiting the trickledown benefits that the airport was touted to bring. KP Nagesh, who lost 30 acres, was paid Rs 7 lakh per acre for 10 acres of khata land and Rs 2 lakh per acre for 20 acres of bagair hukum land. Nagesh, who heads Bhoo Horata Samiti, a group of 305 farmers, said: “Nearly 800 acres were acquired in 2007 at rates prevalent then.
If the airport turned operational immediately, we may have benefitted. An acre now costs more than Rs 40 lakh. Also, they’ve not kept the promise of giving sites and one government job per family.” The families protested before the inauguration and Raghavendra had made fervent promises to pacify them. “He promised site allotment papers before the inauguration and that he’d resign otherwise,” said Shivakumar Doddibelu, a farmer who received Rs 4 lakh compensation. But, Yediyurappa, told TOI: “Farmers’ issues have been resolved. They will receive site papers before commercial operations begin.”
Farmers though aren’t convinced. “Land acquisition affected about 15 villages. That BJP, which we supported wholeheartedly for years, meted out such treatment has caused heartburn,” they said. While locals say this will indirectly benefit JD(S), its candidate, Sharada Purya Naik, told TOI: “That several promises have not been kept has hurt them. I’ll take this up at the appropriate forum when I get elected again.”