bedlam - JD(S) rally holds city to ransom

bedlam - JD(S) rally holds city to ransom
BY AMIT S. UPADHYE
BENGALURU







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The Janata Dal (S)’s muscle flexing exercise at the Palace Grounds went down badly with the people of Bengaluru on Monday as they were held up for hours on roads and flights were delayed from the international airport as commuters struggled to reach it.

About 13 flights out of Bengaluru were delayed by 30 to 45 minutes as passen gers reached the airport much after they were supposed to take off. A top BIA official said that all the 13 flights were scheduled to fly from Bengaluru after 8 pm on Monday. “Since the passengers on previous flights had alerted us about the traffic jams, the flight operators decided to delay take-off by half-an-hour,” he said.

“I had to catch a flight to Delhi. But my taxi was stuck at Mehkri Circle for over five hours,” said Ranjini Ramaswamy, an IIM-B employee.

Schoolchildren, let off at 4 pm, were not able to reach home even six hours later. Students of Mallya Aditi, Delhi Public School, Venkat International School and Vidya Niketan were stranded on Bellary Road as JD(S) workers descended in thousands on the nearby Palace Grounds for the convention. Other commuters were stuck at various junctions for two to three hours. There was chaos on the busy Bellary Road on Monday as over one lakh party activists descended on the Palace Grounds for the Kayakalpa convention of the Janata Dal (S).

Over 15,000 vehicles made their way to the grounds as partymen from various parts of the state arrived to take part in the convention. Traffic was thrown out of gear from the early hours of the morning till late in the evening.

The mega convention, organised as an image building exercise by the JD(S), was held on a huge scale. Being a show of strength, party leaders had ensured the attendance of lakhs of their supporters from all over the state. Police turned a blind eye as hundreds of JD(S) workers travelled on top of buses. All roads leading to the Palace Grounds saw heavy traffic jams for most of the day.

The police had deployed additional personnel on the roads to regulate the traffic to prevent commuters from being inconvenienced, but this did not help matters. Bumper to bumper traffic and mile-long traffic jams were a common sight throughout the day.

Traffic snarls on Bellary Road affected vehicular movement on roads in Sadashivnagar and Vaiyalikaval. Commuters in Vaiyalikaval were forced to wait for hours before they got to the Malleswaram main road. Traffic was completely thrown out of gear between Mekhri circle and Hebbal in the evening, till senior police officers arrived to regulate it .

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, JD(S) spokesman Y.S.V. Datta apologised for the inconvenience, but defended the party’s move to hold its show of strength at the Palace Grounds, saying, “It is very difficult for regional parties like the JD(S) to hold conventions outside Bengaluru. But we always try to make sure the public is put to as little inconvenience as possible.” Traffic DCP (east) Srini vas said that JD(S) party workers arrived many buses for the convention so traffic was affected in several areas.

“But we immediately chalked out a strategy to ease the congestion and succeeded in doing so, “ he claimed. Hundreds of people were forced to walk several kilometres and elderly people and children were stuck inside vehicles without water or food.