MLA blocks citizens from raising issues in civic forums

By Qamar ZJ

Citizens are complaining that CV Raman Nagar MLA is hijacking ward committee meetings, and destroying ward governance and citizen participation. The residents are not being allowed to air their grievances and issues, and instead are being thrown out of WhatsApp groups for raising genuine issues for resolution.

Condemning this brazen and illegal action by the MLA, the residents are demanding withdrawal of MLAs from ward governance. Although citizen participation is mandated by the Indian Constitution, the Karnataka Municipal Corporation Act (KMCA) and the BBMP Act, activities such as subvert justice and equality. Ward committee meetings was one such move by the BBMP to involve the residents, but the MLAs are allegedly “destroying ward governance”.

“There have been numerous examples of MLAs hijacking Ward Committee Meetings, in which they have absolutely no role to play,” says Rishi Raghavan of Bengaluru NavaNirmana Party (BNP). “The MLAs and their cronies prevent citizens from asking questions and raising issues and try to control the ward level budgets for their personal gains. The situation is now going out of control with the MLAs hijacking ward level groups that have been constituted for resolving issues faced by citizens. Rather than trying to understand the issues faced by citizens, they fill the group with their cronies and yay-sayers. Any citizen who raises grievances or issues to be resolved are unceremoniously thrown out by the MLAs.”

The latest such case of MLAs playing spoil sports happens to be that of C V Raman Nagar MLA from BJP, S. Raghu. Apparently, he took control of a WhatsApp group created for Ward 57 (C V Raman Nagar Ward). “The Nodal Officer of the ward was recently shunted out for unknown reasons. In his absence, the MLA has taken control of the ward group and has been preventing citizens from raising issues they face,” says Raghavan. “Two residents of the ward who had been regularly attending Ward Committee Meetings and resolving a lot of civic issues of the ward, had raised a few issues being faced by citizens to be resolved. Shockingly, the two residents were removed from the group by the MLA for raising the issue, instead of facilitating solutions to the problems.”

“These are not isolated incidents and this has become the norm over a period of time with the MLAs across Bengaluru trying to usurp the budget available for the wards,” says Srikanth Narasimhan, Founder & General Secretary of BNP. “We vehemently oppose this blatant and illegal intervention by MLAs in the process of ward governance for personal gains. This has led to a situation where the real issues raised by citizens are being ignored and projects that the politicians want to execute for themselves are only being carried out. This has to stop immediately.”

Incidentally, the issues that were red flagged by the MLAs were to do with potholes, roads, and drains, whose neglect has taken a toll on the city.