Parties in favour of empowering RWAs

Parties in favour of empowering RWAs
Bangalore, Mar 21, DHNS

The rise of the Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) has been phenomenal in the last four years, ever since the erstwhile Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) was dissolved.

And now with the impending elections to the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), the three major political parties have decided to give more teeth to these organisations.
The JD(S), for instance, has in one of its manifesto points to the BBMP elections 2010, declared that a legislation will be passed to provide statutory powers to the RWAs, if elected to power.

The Congress has also declared that it will try to ensure maximum ‘peoples’ participation’ in the BBMP, if elected to power. Representing the Congress at a public forum here on Friday, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee President R V Deshpande remained tight-lipped on whether the support he displayed for empowering the RWAs was part of the party manifesto. “You will come to know on March 22 when we will announce the BBMP election manifesto,” he quipped.

The three political parties brought together on the same platform by Janaagraha, to speak on their agendas for the BBMP elections, were quite sceptical on making promises before the release of their manifesto. The representatives from all the three political parties tried to rest their cases on past laurels. The Congress chief stated that the past reigns will be the deciding factor in the elections for the voters to makeup their minds, the BJP and JD(S) did not provide any concrete solutions to the City’s woes.

“We will be releasing the party manifesto in the next couple of days and so, I will restrict my talk to the major issues that plague the City,” said C Narayanswamy, City President, JD(S). Following suit, BJP representative, Yashwanthpur MLA, Shobha Karandlaje decided to talk at length on the water problems and listed out various ideas proposed at the Government-level meant to provide relief to the City.