Series: Karnataka Assembly Elections 2023

An old saying goes “it is better to side with the devil you know than the devil you don’t”. To me that seems the only reason for Bengaluru’s voters resisting whatever wave swept the rest of the state. Only in Bengaluru did BJP retain the 2018 number of 16 seats, even as it got washed away everywhere else. There are analyses aplenty in the media and the internet on how and why the BJP lost the state so badly. You can draw your own conclusions from them. Maybe India needs a new Long March revolution to get out of the…

As polling ended on May 10th, it became clear that Bengaluru would have one of the lowest voter turnouts in the state. Election officials estimate that the entire state had a turnout of 73.19%. In Bengaluru however, only around 55% of the registered voters showed up to the polls. Representational image. Pic: Public Resource Org on Flickr/CC BY 2.0 BBMP South recorded 52.80% voter turnout, BBMP Central recorded 55.39%, and BBMP North had 52.88% voter turnout. Bangalore Urban district, which comprises the peripheral constituencies like Yeshwanthpur, Byatarayanapura and Mahadevapura, recorded around 56.98% voter turnout. As headlines condemning the city’s apathy…

By now you may have cast your vote and got back home. Did you find it easy to make a choice? I did not. The other day, my friend Sanjay Vijayaraghavan, a long-time voter in Bengaluru, looked at the list of candidates in his constituency and groaned, "None of them look inspiring." He was not alone. There were groups discussing the pros and cons of NOTA due to the lack of appealing choices. Frustration with the quality of MLA candidates The quality and rhetoric of campaigns over the last few elections have not improved. Rather than presenting long term and…

A lot has changed in Bengaluru in the last 20 years. Millions of people moved in and made the city their home in the last decade. Lakhs of jobs have been added. Infrastructure too has been added to keep pace with the growing population. Municipal wards went from 100 to 198 to now 243. A new BBMP Act has been enacted that extended the Mayor's term from one year to 2.5 years. The BBMP Act also brought in Zonal level Commissioners and Zonal Councils. We saw so many Chief Ministers, Bengaluru Ministers, Commissioners, and Mayors but one thing remained more…

An analysis of BBMP's work order data over the last five years shows 74% of funds were meant for roads and drain works. From "Remodelling of stormwater drains, culverts-bridges and allied works" to "White Topping on selected roads" - the packages range from a few lakhs to many a crore. Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), Bengaluru’s city government, administers an area with a population of around 12 million and has a budget of around Rs 11,000 crore as of 2023-24. In spite of its massive expenditure on civic works, BBMP is often in the news for all the wrong reasons,…

Bengaluru is a mess! Traffic is horrendous. Garbage is not picked up and lakes are polluted. Unplanned development is affecting the quality of life.  'I pay my taxes - why am I not getting services?!' But are you going to be voting on May 10th? No? Why not? 'C'mon, one vote does not matter!' This is a myth that needs to be busted especially in Bengaluru. In our city, the winning margins are very thin! Bengaluru's story of low turnout Over eight Bengaluru constituencies have a deplorable turnout of less than 50% last time, which is in the bottom third…

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 )…