Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 26km roadshow in the Bengaluru South Lok Sabha constituency on Saturday, netizens have expressed displeasure at the curbs to be in place—from a ban on assembling at balconies to the blocking of entrances to homes and businesses.
The roadshow was advanced in view of NEET scheduled for Sunday, but the 6km roadshow in Bengaluru Central was pushed to Sunday. In places like Basavanagudi and Indiranagar, which Modi’s roadshow will pass on Saturday and Sunday respectively, officials of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike are trimming trees to ensure they do not disturb the prime minister’s election campaign van.
The Puttenahalli police in Bengaluru South have been directed not to allow people to watch the rally from their terraces and balconies. A letter containing the instructions to police has gone viral on social media with the curbs being dubbed “draconian”. It also directs the police to shut down the entry and exit points of buildings and to prevent unauthorised people from entering the premises.
An Indiranagar resident tweeted a video of 12 Main Road. “This is 12th main Indiranagar, Bangalore, one day before Modi comes here for his rally. These guys have blocked entrances to homes, businesses and pavements. The amount of money they spent is ridiculous. They’ve gone and blocked roads causing inconvenience to residents. Imagine emergency services like Ambulances, fire engines and so on,” read the tweet.
“Trees chopped in Indira Nagar, Bangalore to welcome the “Vshwaguru,” Tamil Nadu Congress MP Karti Chidambaram tweeted. Some parts of Bengaluru also witnessed speedy patchwork on roads in view of Modi’s mega roadshow.
The roadshow drew criticism also because of NEET, with the Karnataka Private School Managements, Teaching and Non-Teaching Staff Coordination Committee complaining to the Election Commission to postpone the exam or redirect the Sunday rally to the city’s outskirts to ensure students do not miss out on the exam.
“Due to your postponement of Saturday’s rally to Sunday, you are causing hardship and fear psychosis among students due to security reasons. As a result, most roads and traffic is restricted on most of the designated roads and adjacent roads. Your office has not looked at how many premises come which conduct NEET examinations, hence we request your office to look into issues so that there are no restrictions in and around the city which causes hardship and fear to reach exam centres. We also request if rally to be conducted even after our complaint, then we demand either postpone NEET Exam and facilitate rally or re-direct that rally to outskirts of Bengaluru,” the complaint read.
According to the National Testing Agency, which conducts the medical entrance test, around 50 examination centres are located in Bengaluru. “We have written to the police department and government officials concerned to ensure that the roadshow does not interfere with the examination. The government officials have assured us that the roadshow will not pass through examination centres,” an NTA official said.
On Saturday the roadshow is expected to begin at 10am from JP Nagar 7th Phase and will conclude at Sankey Road in Malleswaram, covering 18 Assembly constituencies. The Sunday roadshow in Bengaluru Central is expected to cover 10 Assembly constituencies.
