The Information Technology (IT) corridor of the city, spread over Mahadevapura and K.R. Puram Assembly constituencies, were in the headlines for the wrong reasons recently.
Many pockets of these constituencies were flooded during heavy rains in 2022, drawing the ire of voters. So much so that the Bharatiya Janata Party denied ticket to its incumbent MLA in Mahadevapura, Arvind Limbavali, who won thrice since 2008, and instead fielded his wife. He is the only incumbent MLA from the city the BJP denied a ticket to.
While citizens demand preventive measures to tackle flooding and overflowing lakes, floods dominate the discourse during these elections. Million Voters Rising, a citizen’s manifesto for Mahadevapura, for instance, diagnoses the problem as a local governance deficit and demands a separate municipal body for Mahadevapura.
Meanwhile, both Mahadevapura and K. R. Puram suffers from traffic snarls and drinking water problems. Large parts of Mahadevapura are yet to be serviced by piped water and residents here are dependent on borewells and water tankers.
In areas like Garudacharpalya, Hoodi and Hagadur, people spend ₹2,000 to ₹4,000 a month on private water tankers. “The present MLA has promised that the Cauvery V Stage will be completed soon and we will get water, but the wait is on,” said Shivashankar, a resident of Hoodi.
As seen in many parts of the city, traffic is a major issue in both these constituencies. Despite the newly opened metro line, it doesn’t connect these parts with the rest of the network as the works are incomplete.
“White-topping work, incomplete metro connectivity, and poor traffic management has led to traffic snarls,” said Pradeep Kumar, a resident of K.R. Puram. Apart from this, garbage and drinking water issues persist, he added.
Both Mahadevapura and K. R. Puram are burgeoning areas with a large influx of job-seeking migrants coming into the city. “The population has grown exponentially over the last few years straining the civic infrastructure. So the infrastructure needs a leg up,” said Basavaraj, a resident of K.R. Puram. He also added that there were several instances of chain-snatching and mugging, making roads unsafe.
B.A. Basavaraja, the incumbent MLA in K.R. Puram, won the seat twice from the Congress in 2013 and 2018. He defected to the BJP in 2019 as part of Operation Kamala. He won the bypoll and is seeking a re-election from the BJP.
The Congress has fielded D.K. Mohan, Chairman, Cambridge Group of Institutions, an education group in the area. Meanwhile, the BJP that denied ticket to its three-time MLA Arvind Limbavali has fielded his wife S. Manjula, even as the Congress has fielded incumbent Mulabagal MLA H. Nagesh from the seat.
