‘Battle for Bengaluru’ within Congress reaches Delhi. But why is the portfolio so sought after
Bengaluru: The ‘Battle for Bengaluru’ has reached Delhi, with newly-inducted Cabinet ministers in Karnataka rushing to the Congress high command for an amicable resolution to issues around the allocation of the high-profile portfolio.
Krishna Byre Gowda, the MLA from Byatrayanapura in north Bengaluru who was allocated the portfolio of Bengaluru Development, has refused to take charge after Chief Minister D.K.Shivakumar decided to retain at least two key departments: Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA), and the Bengaluru Metropolitan Region Development Authority (BMRDA).
“Gowda has spoken to the chief minister about this and they will discuss the same in Bengaluru in a couple of days,” an associate of Gowda told ThePrint, requesting anonymity.
The associate said Gowda wants full control of the portfolio to ensure seamless impact across departments, rather than overseeing it in parts. Gowda visited Delhi, accompanied by Shivajinagar MLA, Rizwan Arshad and several others, over the issue.
Bengaluru is regarded as the state’s—and the country’s—biggest economic growth engine, housing over a quarter of Karnataka’s population, and contributing over 40 percent of the state’s GSDP.
But Bengaluru’s image has taken a severe beating over the years, turning into a poster for everything wrong with Indian cities.
The city has become synonymous with endless traffic jams, crumbling infrastructure, garbage mismanagement, frequent flooding and other challenges that have overshadowed its more endearing monikers as the IT and startup capital of the country. Despite the glaring challenges, it remains one of the most sought-after portfolios in Karnataka.
This begs the question: Why?
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‘Double-edged sword’
“Everybody wants to prove how efficient they are by taking up the Bengaluru portfolio. They believe that if they can effect some change, this would help them raise their stature,” Gautham Kumar, a former Mayor of the erstwhile Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, told ThePrint.
P.R. Ramesh, a Congress leader who served as Bengaluru city Mayor between 2003-04, said competition for the portfolio is not as much political as it is to showcase ideas that can help transform the city.
“When I was mayor, the city was 225 square kilometers. Now it is over 800 square kilometers with so many more establishments and infrastructure changes that have boosted Bengaluru’s image on the global stage. Every minister has their own ideas on how they want to transform the city and solve its problems in innovative ways. This is one of the main reasons,” Ramesh said.
The attention Bengaluru attracts is a “double-edged sword”, urban experts and political leaders say.
So sought-after is the portfolio that Ramalinga Reddy resigned as water resources minister a day after taking oath on 3 June on being denied the Bengaluru Development portfolio.
Between 2019 and 2023, the two BJP CMs—B.S.Yediyurappa and Basavaraj Bommai–decided to retain the portfolio to avoid a full-blown war within their own cabinet.
In the first Yediyurappa-led government in 2008, R.Ashoka and Katta Subramanya Naidu both served as Bengaluru district incharge ministers.
Normalised corruption in almost every department also adds to the appeal, experts and political leaders say.
For instance, the awarding of a 35-year garbage management contract, at about Rs 39,000 crore, to Delhi MSW Solutions Ltd, an affiliate of the Hyderabad-based Ramky Group, has come under the scanner as authorities proceeded with the tender despite the finance department flagging it.
R. Ashoka, the Leader of the Opposition, alleged on Wednesday that the tender was awarded for a Rs 10,000-crore ‘kickback or commission’.
“The Congress is extracting money even from garbage, and the stench of corruption is spreading, This is why there is competition among ministers to take charge of Bengaluru,” Ashoka alleged.
Ashwin Mahesh, an urban affairs expert, said that Bengaluru attracts ‘free publicity’.
As one of the biggest IT services hubs and a hotspot for startups, aviation, biotechnology and e-commerce, Bengaluru is spoken in the same breath as cities like San Francisco.
The slang ‘Bangalored’ entered pop culture references in the 2000s, meaning losing one’s job because it was outsourced to a centre in India. The thriving nightlife, educational infrastructure and employment opportunities also add to its aspirational value, increasing migration into the city.
From around 70 lakhs in 2010, the city’s population roughly stands at around 1.4 crores today, compounding its challenges and fuelling the rapidly declining quality of life.
‘No model of coordination’
Mahesh said that Gowda’s demands to get control of all moving parts in Bengaluru are reasonable, as there is no model of coordination among departments.
For instance, Mahesh said that to solve congestion, there must be planned housing even in the outskirts of the city and the BDA is the agency entrusted with identifying and developing residential layouts.
“These agencies have some complementary roles,” Mahesh added, reasoning that a holistic solution is still evasive under the current structure.
Public transport comes under another department, as do other functions, adding to the multitude of agencies working in silos, he underlined.
The chief minister must assure these agencies coordinate better to help solve the larger problem, he said. “But we have not developed this model so far. We are used to models in which each minister operates like he is the owner and operator of his turf. That will not work in this city. We have neither built a collaborative environment among ministers nor are we giving full control of the city to one minister.”
The five Bengaluru corporations—Central, East, North, South, and West—have five commissioners and can commission work individually in their respective jurisdictions. But larger projects like the Metro, arterial roads or flyovers require coordination overseen by the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) chief commissioner.
One of the first announcements Shivakumar made after taking over as the chief minister on 3 June was to provide an additional Rs 2,000-crore grant for Bengaluru to fix its roads. However, there is no clarity on where this money would be spent since different zones have different challenges.
The city’s pothole-laden roads have claimed more lives than all other urban centres combined over the last six years.
Prior to replacing Siddaramaiah, Shivakumar was the Bengaluru district in charge minister and had announced several big ticket infrastructure projects to help alleviate ‘Brand Bengaluru’ and stem the declining quality of life in India’s IT capital. This included the Rs 40,000-crore Tunnel Road, a double-decker flyover, renaming Ramanagara as ‘Bengaluru South’, a second airport and several other projects.
He had also spearheaded efforts to change the structure of the local government from the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike to the Greater Bengaluru Authority, effectively breaking up the city into five corporations for better administration and service delivery.
However, the lack of an elected local government since September 2020 has left the city at the hands of the state government and officials with no bridge between governance and the governed.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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