City: Bengaluru

The 2023 Karnataka Assembly Elections will take place on May 10th. Here is a quick guide to help make the voting process as smooth as possible. Check voter rolls and find your polling booth information You can only vote from your designated polling booth in the constituency your ward falls under, and your name must be in the voting list or electoral roll. You can find your name and information about your polling booth in a number of ways. You can use the Voter Helpline app created by the Election Commission. You can search for your name in the electoral…

Health was in much focus for the last three years due to COVID-19. The governments seemed to take some initiatives towards providing some care for the people during the pandemic. But if there was some hope that the political class would give healthcare enough attention, then this has been belied with the political class going back to business as usual. COVID-19 will not be the last pandemic, given the extent of environmental destruction and increase in human-animal conflict. But, sadly, we, as a society, have not learnt our lessons from COVID-19 and have not invested in the health of the…

Waste activist Odette finds streets littered and garbage piles everywhere during her morning walks in Domlur. Nagraj, also known as Plog Raja ,continues to organise weekly clean up drives. More than 12 years after the SWM PIL got BBMP to start implementing decentralised waste management, why does Bengaluru still have garbage piles everywhere? Why do we continue to rely on illegal dumping grounds? What has the state government done in the last five years? A recap of solid waste-related developments in the recent term: Mushrooming black spots across the city (service roads, below flyovers, lake beds, storm water drains )…

More candidates with criminal cases than in 2018 There are more candidates with declared criminal cases in all three parties after 2018. It has risen from 83 to 96 in the BJP, 59 to 122 among the Congress candidates, and 41 to 70 in the JD(S), according to the ‘Karnataka Assembly Elections 2023: Analysis of Criminal Background, Financial, Education, Gender and other Details of Candidates’ report, released by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).   Eight candidates have declared murder-related cases (IPC Section 302), 35 candidates have attempts to murder cases (Section 307), and 49 candidates have declared cases of crime against…

The Merriam Webster dictionary’s definition of the word ‘manifesto’ is “A written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer”. Do the manifestos released by the four main political parties contesting the May 10th Karnataka assembly elections fit that definition? The intentions are somewhat spelt out, the motives are unknown. And its views on issues like decentralisation, of urban governance in particular, finds no mention at all. The tradition of issuing “manifestos” began with the first election in 1952. But those were different and simpler times with one major party, which faced no worthwhile opposition. But today’s…

In early January 2023, with the elections drawing near, citizens across Bengaluru began waking up to their neighbourhood lakes being drained, dug up and desilted in preparation for restoration. The state government had allocated various grants for lake restoration across the city. According to a full page advertisement the government placed in the Deccan Herald, 47 lakes had already been developed under the Nava Nagarothana scheme and 17 were to be developed in 2023 under the Amrutha Nagarothana scheme during the 2022-23 budget. The ad announcement on the development of lakes. Pic: Screenshot of the Deccan Herald ad We previously…

Uday Garudachar made his foray into politics in 2008 in Bihar, where he unsuccessfully contested a Rajya Sabha seat. An established name in the real estate and construction business, Garudachar then shifted his political gaze to his home state of Karnataka; in particular to Bengaluru’s Chickpet assembly constituency. As BJP candidate, he lost the 2013 election to R V Devraj. But managed to win in 2018 and now is once again the BJP candidate in Chickpet. His political career has not been without controversy. In October 2022, Garudachar was sentenced to two months imprisonment, the appeal against which is pending,…

Towards the end of 2016, the massive public campaign against the proposed steel flyover, led by Citizens for Bengaluru along with many other groups, not only stopped the Government from building the flyover but also helped build support for improved and better mass public transport in Bengaluru. Protests against elevated corridor project The dormant demand for suburban train gathered steam with the energetic #ChukuBukuBeku rail yatra and all major parties pledged funds and professed keen interest in the project. It also became a topic of discussion during the 2018 Assembly and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Similarly, the campaign to double…

Editor's note: On January 25 2022, the state government put out a full page ad in the Deccan Herald showcasing its achievements in Bengaluru. The ad praised the government’s expenditure of hundreds of crores spent on restoring lakes, building BBMP schools, the much publicised Namma clinics, roads, and various BDA layouts. In the upcoming series, we look at some of these claims and see the reality behind it. On January 25th, the state government claimed in an advertisement that “47 lakes had been developed under the Nava Nagarothana scheme at the cost of 317.25 crores.” Under the Amrutha Nagarothana scheme,…

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released its manifesto, on May 1st, for the upcoming Karnataka Assembly Elections. It lists 16 promises. They will provide three free cooking gas cylinders to all BPL families annually; one each during the months of Yugadi, Ganesh Chaturthi, and Deepavali. They will set up an Atal Ahara Kendra in every ward of every municipal corporation in the state to provide affordable, quality and healthy food across the state. They will launch the Poshane scheme through which every BPL household will be provided with half litre Nandini milk every day and 5 kg siri dhanya--through monthly…