Comment

Now that the date for BBMP polls is set and the calendar has been announced, it could be useful to look back on what this city was like when the last corporation elections were held.

That was November 11, 2001, when the population of the entire urban area was about 5.7 million. It is now, an utterly changed city.

It’s not just the increase in population or the nearly average 11% economic growth recorded over the decade. A lot more has happened to Bangalore on its way to becoming Bengaluru.

The creation of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, by swallowing up the Town Municipal Councils surrounding the old corporation, has altered the city’s demography beyond comprehension.

The old corporation’s population was just 4.8 million in 2001. When the council elections were held that year, just over half the electorate turned up to vote.

There were no voter awareness campaigns, no talk of a directly elected mayor or mayor-in-council and, of course, there were no local 24/7 news channels.

Today the electorate is nearly twice that size. The city has acquired powerful electoral representation with the new delimitation, which has increased the number of Assembly seats from 16 to 24, which makes Bangalore weigh in with one-eighth of the whole state Assembly. It got an extra seat for the Lok Sabha.

When the voters go out to elect their councillors on March 28, they will make a statement of change, no matter what the cynics say. The crucial difference will be that the regular parties — BJP, Congress and JDS — have to find candidates who’re capable of responding to the aspirations of a young electorate. It will simply not do to use the five years in the council to just push piecework contracts and skew real estate deals.

Even if the Yeddyurappa government succumbs to pressure and puts off the proposed radical reforms in city governance, even if the politicians get spooked by the idea of a powerful mayor in the city and manage to set up dummy mayors, the increasing demand for transparency will ensure results are delivered. The new councillors will be made to sweat, from work or worry.

The BJP government at the state has been making and announcing grand plans for Bengaluru. There are massive projects on paper for urban transport, connectivity to air and rail ports and piped water supply.

There is a promise of integration of control and supervision of all service deliveries — governance, traffic management, heritage conservation, environment and sustainability, public health, education and security.

The 160-page Agenda for Bengaluru Infrastructure Development (ABIDe) document, Plan Bengaluru 2020, is yet to become a ‘Government Document’, but it will add to the pressure.

Whether the candidates of the three big political parties read or understand these plans and documents could well be the moot question, but with so many urban voters looking for some relief from the poor vision, corruption and mismanagement, they’ll realise that city voters now have a voice, the 24/7 channels are on the look out for news all the time and because the urban vote is bigger now, impatient voters have an opportunity to take revenge in the Assembly elections that fall between now and the 2015 municipal elections.

The regular parties have tried their best to avoid the municipal elections, precisely because none of them have a vision for Bengaluru. They’ve made it their art to practice opposition, picketing and blocking infrastructure projects.

Every party that has been in power has grabbed huge swathes of land citing infrastructure projects and failed to deliver. They’ve announced plans when in power, and opposed them later.

A lot has happened since 2001, yes. The voters have seen how Ratan Tata quit town in disgust, thwarted and frustrated by the old politicians, who’re still out there.

They have seen how NR Narayana Murthy was made to quit as chairman of the international airport in its development phase. They are witness to the never-ending NICE project saga. They see old politicians squabbling in street language. And could you blame the voters if they are angry?

This is the first time that citizens will go out to vote with some inkling of their moment in a city’s history. The regular politicians and the grey babus know that the electorate sees them as a problem, if not a threat. The old way is the public enemy and the public knows it.

The old way has put up language chauvinism, obscurantism and bigotry in the way of development and progress. But it seems this is to be the end. There is a new beginning, a new opportunity for a city that is just about 1,000 years old.