The voters of Bengaluru have spoken. The BJP has got the majority in the BBMP Council with 100 seats and 40% of votes polled, while the Congress is next with 75 seats and 39% of votes polled. In over 18 seats, the Congress lost narrowly within 1% of votes. A very close verdict indeed.
The last five years have been bad for the citizens of Bengaluru. The last Council was the most corrupt in our history, with scandals like midnight tenders, the burning of records, creation of false and bogus bills, and huge siphoning of money. The government created an inquiry committee which disclosed gory details. Garbage, solid waste, drinking water, footpaths, roads were all in a mess with a garbage mafia, a water tanker mafia, a contractor mafia and extortion rackets run by some in power rampant across the city. In many parts of the city, people could not construct unless the area corporator was paid off. Building plans had to be paid for with local corporators and most approvals came with tariff cards for bribes. Real estate companies have many gory tales to tell. Of course, there were a few honest, diligent corporators but they were in a minority.
In the midst of this, the earlier BJP and the current Congress governments were helpless. Bengaluru suffered the most with the quality of our life declining rapidly and most citizens frustrated and angry.
The result of the poll with the BJP getting a majority after such bad and corrupt governance may surprise many. Citizens cast their vote for PM Narendra Modi in the hope that his promise of clean governance will be delivered by his party men. The BJP capitalised on the popularity of PM Narendra Modi to squeak into power. The Congress fought hard, spent enormously, but lost narrowly in many wards due to many reasons.
After being elected in 2013, the Congress government has been indifferent to Bengaluru in the first two years of its reign, capitalizing on its big victory in the rural areas. It cut funds for urban areas, increased subsidies hugely to its constituency, ignored industry without a full-time industries minister and generally was indifferent to the city despite the city making up the major share of state taxes and GDP. It was reminiscent of the JDS-created urban-rural divide when the then PM Shri Deve Gowda took on the IT and urban leadership publicly.
Our Chief Minister, after pressure from the media and Bengalureans, warmed up to the needs of the city over the last six months and set up a committee to restructure BBMP. Sadly, his efforts did not succeed due to political reasons and mishandling of the government's case before the Supreme Court. He announced major infrastructure projects to ease traffic, superseded the BBMP, putting in a reputed senior official as administrator and tried to turn it around. He also put his reputation on the line, leading the Congress campaign personally, putting large resources at work. It was too little too late, and the personal popularity of our PM and his belated efforts to turn around the city conspired to make the Congress second-best though very narrowly!
The elections carry many lessons for both parties. The BJP was reduced to banking on the popularity of the PM to get 100 seats. Its number and voting lead since the last election has come down as its bad governance record and inability to control corruption in its ranks hurt its reputation. The Congress paid the price for its belated discovery that the city really matters to the state as the engine of its economy and the control of the city is vital to its interest. It tried valiantly to make up, but the effort was not sufficient; nevertheless it improved its seats and voting percentage. Certainly the inability to win the city would hurt and weaken the Chief Minister as he put his reputation on the line in a party which clearly revels in power games and has dissension in its ranks.
Citizens now expect a corruption-free governance and focus on making the city more liveable. Bengaluru is the richest in the country in per capita terms with a very large educated middle class and globally-dominant industries. Its infrastructure is around 15 years behind its need. It needs governance reforms as it is too big to be managed by a broken BBMP, and needs to be restructured into five smaller corporations as suggested by the reforms committee. It needs care and investment to enable the state's growth. Hopefully the lessons of this election will be learnt by both parties and they will focus on improving the quality of life of citizens.
As a large number of voters have reposed faith in our PM, citizens expect our PM to ensure that his party men give a corruption-free regime over the next 5 years. We also expect the BJP corporators to take a new oath along with the oath of office -
Main khaoonga nahin, na doosro ko khane doonga! The same promise made by our PM which he has lived by so far. Nothing less than this oath will satisfy citizens now that elections are over.
(Mohandas Pai was the CFO and then the head of HR at Infosys. He is now Chairman, Aarin Capital Partners.)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.