Bengaluru polls: Cong lost grace too?

prahlad

Prahlad Rao | August 25, 2015


#bengaluru   #congress   #bjp   #bbmp   #elections   #narendra modi  

In a democracy political parties lose elections and some are won. And in a century of its existence the Congress party has many humiliating defeats and unbelievable victories. However, the party does not seem to have taken its defeat in elections to Bengaluru municipal corporation in right spirit.

The BJP won 100 of the BBMP's 198 wards, the Congress 76 and the Janata Dal (Secular) 14 in the polling that took place on Saturday and whose results came out today.

Karnataka Congress president G Parameshwara today called the BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike) poll results very disappointing. This remark is well within the parameters of politically correct reactions. Next he said ‘this verdict will impact city’s development.” This comment is totally unacceptable and politically incorrect. Congress is the ruling party and it controls money and the threat could be bad for the city.

We understand his disappointment, but it is wrong to threaten the citizens of Bengaluru in such manner.  The Congress should also take note of the demographic numbers in the IT capital of the nation. Bengaluru now has nearly 80% non-Kannadigas and they come from all over India. If the party is going to be vengeful and blocks the city’s development, the consequences would be felt in India.

Bengaluru can also trigger social media backlash and the Congress has shown that it is very poor in handling the perception of the virtual world.

For the record, this is the third big victory for the BJP this month after it won civic elections in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

It was noted by prime minister Narendra Modi. "After MP & Rajasthan, BBMP poll results complete a hat-trick of wins for BJP. This is a win for politics of development & good governance," tweeted Modi as his party celebrated in Bengaluru.

The PM should also feel happy because for the first time, 50 per cent seats were reserved for the women candidates.

There was big buzz but the elections saw less than 50 per cent voter turnout on Saturday. Many young professionals had contested this time and Bengaluru faces big problems like traffic, bad roads, poor garbage disposal and polluted lakes.

Meanwhile, a visibly disturbed Karnataka Congress leader and chief minister Siddaramaiah said "I own responsibility for the performance of the Congress in the civic polls. The BJP was in power in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Council for the last five years. Their rule was marred by corruption and scams. But people still voted for them."

Pointing out that the BJP had lost the New Delhi Assembly election though it had come to power in the centre, Siddaramaiah, who was in Delhi yesterday, said the loss at the civic polls did not reflect on his government. "The BJP lost miserably in the New Delhi Assembly polls. Do you think it was a referendum of the NDA government at the Centre? Elections to urban local bodies are completely different involving local issues," he maintained.

The chief minister, however, admitted that his party did not get the campaign right. "I feel we failed to convince the voters why they should have voted us to power. We did not effectively communicate our achievements and plans for Bengaluru," he said.

Effective communication is different than miscommunication. The Congress should remember this.

Comments

 

Other News

Civil Services 2022 Top 20 felicitated

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology, MoS PMO, Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Space and MoS Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Dr Jitendra Singh on Tuesday interacted with and felicitated the first 20 All India Toppers of IAS/ Civil Services Exam 20

Boost to offshore wind energy projects

In a major decision, the Government has decided to grant waiver of ISTS charges to Off-Shore Wind Projects and extend the waiver to Green Hydrogen/Green Ammonia. This decision has been taken to facilitate wider execution of offshore wind energy initiatives, to promote the expansion of Green Hydrogen / Gree

Duty of stakeholders to provide cost effective, alternate energy fuels: Gadkari

Urging use of alternative and cost effective fuels to reduce pollution caused by vehicles, union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday said finding cost-effective fuels is the need of the hour and underlined that use of fuels like bio-CNG and green hydrogen help in protecting the e

Record production of rice, wheat, and sugarcane estimated

The foodgrain production of 3305.34 lakh tonnes is estimated in the current agricultural year 2022-23 – higher by 149.18 LMT as compared to the previous year, according to the Third Advance Estimates of production of major crops released by the ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare.

India`s ‘AIRAWAT’ ranks 75th in top 500 Supercomputing List

The AI Supercomputer ‘AIRAWAT’, installed at C-DAC, Pune, has been ranked 75th in the world. It was declared so in the 61st edition of Top 500 Global Supercomputing List on Tuesday at the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC 2023) in Germany. It puts India on top of AI S

Ocean Dialogue a great opportunity for G20 members

The ongoing third Environment and Climate Sustainability Working Group G20 meeting (May 21-23) has focused on three aspects: land degradation and reclamation of mining areas, Blue Economy and sustainable ocean management and resource sufficiency and circular economy. Leena Nandan, secretary,

Visionary Talk: Amitabh Gupta, Pune Police Commissioner with Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now


Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter