The people? Who cares about them!

Get ready for another traffic jam in city

Special Correspondent

Congress rally may affect vehicle movement today

Over 2,000 buses and trucks will bring people

Road near Mehkri Circle to be hit the most

— Photo: V. Sreenivasa_Murthy

Taking stock: KPCC president M. Mallikarjun Kharge inspecting arrangements for the public meeting at Palace Grounds in Bangalore on Sunday.

Bangalore: A majority of the city’s population, especially those using vehicles, including the commuters of the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation, will be in for another excruciating journey owing to the possible traffic jam in the central business district on Monday morning.

Not to be left behind in projecting its stand on the current political turmoil going on in the State, the Congress is launching an indefinite “people’s movement” from Monday to “expose” the hollowness in the allegations made against it by the Bharatiya Janata Party for the sake of coming to power.

According to sources in the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee, more than 2,000 buses and trucks had been engaged to bring people from five neighbouring districts to the Palace Grounds on Bellary Road, one of the main thoroughfares of the city. The “people’s rally” is scheduled to start from 11 a.m., but the pouring in of party workers and sympathisers to the venue would start during the peak hours.

The party is erecting a huge pandal and there are three entries to the Grounds on Bellary Road and one entry for vehicles on T.V. Tower Road. The vehicular traffic would flow in one-way due to the road divider and the only route for coming to the public meeting would be from the Mehkri Circle.

A large number of people are expected to come from all the directions, particularly Tumkur Road, Bellary Road and T.V. Tower Road resulting in a serious traffic jam. It will have a cascading effect on the vehicular traffic on the road in the far flung areas. It had had happened, a couple of days ago, when the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Janata Dal (Secular) workers came to the Raj Bhavan and staged protest dharnas on Mahatma Gandhi Road choking the busy roads.

A senior police official said that there would be a lot of congestion when the vehicles coming from western and southern parts of the city through the other side of Bellary Road and take a U turn at Mehkri Circle.

However, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president Mallikarjun Kharge said that Police Commissioner N. Achuta Rao had made elaborate arrangements to regulate the traffic.