With the floods in the city receiving international media attention, the Bharatiya Janata Party sought to “correct” the narrative on Tuesday. Even as they clarified that only a small part of the city was flooded, the government blamed previous governments led by Opposition parties for the state of affairs.
Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai blamed the Opposition Congress for the situation and said, “The maladministration and granting of permission for construction of buildings on the encroached lands by the previous Congress government is the major reason for flooding of the city areas.”
New York too?
Minister for Health and Family Welfare K. Sudhakar also blamed the “legacy” of encroachments and vanished lakes they inherited for floods in the city, but was also quick to add that this was not a time for blame game. Responding to criticism from industrialist Mohandas Pai, he said any international city would also be flooded if it received this quantum of rain and asked whether New York wouldn’t be flooded in a similar situation.
KPCC president D.K. Shivakumar hit back at the government and the Chief Minister in particular, who also holds charge of Bengaluru Development.
No action on ground
He said Mr. Bommai was busy visiting flood-hit areas, but there was no action seen on the ground to mitigate floods. “Mr. Bommai does not have a vision for the city. Bengaluru’s serious flooding problem is being reduced to memes on social media. This should make us hang our heads in shame. Once hailed for infrastructure, Bengaluru has been reduced to a joke,” he said.
Speaking to reporters, the Congress leader said the condition in the city was not so bad during the Congress government. The city has been witnessing a bad situation owing to corruption in the administration of the BJP government. “If the BJP cannot govern the city, let us go for elections,” Mr. Shivakumar said.
“Come 2023, I promise to put an end to all this & restore Namma Bengaluru to its former glory,” Mr. Shivakumar tweeted and tagged a news item “India’s Bengaluru flooded after days of torrential rains” published in The Washington Post.
