Superstar Siddu is back in the news and how … Bangalore has had unprecedented rains, just like the unprecedented run of bad governance and our dear Superstar Siddu says in a press conference – “do you have any suggestions?”. Well, the journalist didn’t have any suggestions but I have several, starting with – “get lost”. No city in India has the infrastructure to deal with incessant rains, as Mumbai rains tell us every year. So Bangalore is no exception. What is unacceptable is the arrogance of this Superstar and his cronies….
There was a program on the Mirror Now channel about a week back on the Bangalore rains. Faye D’Souza was the anchor and one of the panelists was Kavita Reddy of the CONgress. It has taken me a week to recover from her verbal shower on that program to write this blog !!!!! The woman just would not shut up and listen to anything in any language from anyone. And it was strange to see her defending the Superstar CM who was anyway seeking suggestions from journalists to solve the pothole problem in his state. Apparently 3000 crores were set aside for road construction but Siddu probably had to lay roads to Italy and no one knows what happened to that money. Even if some roads were built, they have killer potholes so obviously substandard material was used. The storm water drains have not been de-silted, exactly the way it happened in Chennai in 2015. Why??? Siddu needs suggestions to answer that question too.
800 Crores were allocated to fix the “drains” ..WOW. Obviously this amount too has been “drained” into some other account and none of the drains have been fixed. I loved Kavita Reddy’s response to Faye’s question if this was a natural disaster – she first fixed her hearing to “deaf” so she couldn’t hear Faye, then she went on to explain how its a natural disaster in Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai and all other cities in India and not just in Bangalore. You don’t get the connection? You have had a brain drain maybe? You see “lakes are full” and they are full of water not houses and condos – so its a natural disaster, you duffer. Get it? It was almost as if Kavita Reddy was competing with the rains with her verbal diarrhoea, and she won. God Varuna took a break.
There were such gems from Siddu’s ministers, the great Mr. K J George came up with this gem “Can I hold an umbrella over the sky so the rain won’t pour? Potholes cannot be fixed properly if it rains continuously. Why are you people making anti-Bengaluru statements?” Don’t you dare question the CONgress government. Go question the villain NaMo, for he seems to have diverted the rains from Gujarat to Karnataka to win the elections in 2018.
Dear Bangaloreans – wait for 8 months to get the storm drains fixed and in that time, other buildings will come up on lakes and newer storm drains will be filled with silt. Also the tender tendering process will take forever… so basically, till the polls are held in 2018 nothing will change, except collections and if you vote the Superstar back to power then he will think about new ways of looting the state blind. Thanks for your vote. Siddu’s suggestion line is open 24/7 but only for journalists, you Mango man/woman can go to the nearest drain and drown.
I have finally figured out Siddu’s governance model – Loot, shoot and scoot. Loot when you are in power, shoot off smart one-liners and get aggressive when questioned often, and then scoot when cornered with a VIP red beacon vehicle because “leaders” have to be treated special, citizens have to suffer.
A little rain soaked birdie told me that the BOT-Twit has asked for a report from Siddu … wonder what suggestions he will give in his report??
In the meantime, stay safe Bangaloreans. Someday you too can land a jet fighter on your roads like they did on the Lucknow highway today. Till then, walk everywhere with a long wooden staff and don’t take your car out.
#BangaloreRains
What is it about politicians that so often, regardless of where they are, seems to lead to this? I sometimes wonder if it isn’t self-selecting. Do we get crooked politicians because honest people won’t stoop to what they will to win elections? Or is it even sadder than that: Do honest people say: “Politics is just a cesspool, I couldn’t make a difference so I won’t even try.”
I wonder if this isn’t why it seems like lots of small charities and NGOs do a bit better at affecting change – at least here. Those jobs pay little or nothing so the people who seek them out want to work hard for change. The crooked people generally avoid them as the money that finds its way to them is generally too small to want to steal…
Here in our city the biggest problem we seem to have from an infrastructure standpoint is that everyone has a pet project that they push while they’re in power and then when they’re defeated, their successor undoes all the work, often to the tune of some significant financial penalties that the city pays for. A great new light rail project that’s under way now and hopefully finishing by 2020 was originally started as a subway project in about 1990 by a liberal government. The conservatives then got elected to the provincial government, pulled the plug on the project and then spent tens of millions of dollars to fill in the tunnels that had been dug that we are now re-digging as we speak.
It’s all so frustrating.
Todd, I think it’s because not enough honest people get into politics and the power that people gain as they become governors or Prime Ministers or Presidents is huge. Power is addictive and makes even a sane person lose all perspective. I guess, all regular citizens need to get involved in “running” the country by voting and voting for the good candidates. It starts there and then they need to remove anyone who does not fulfil his/her promises. Now politicians make insane promises to win elections and then nothing is fulfilled. If the civil society is active, then the politician is careful.
Also I feel projects have to be completed irrespective of who is in power – I don’t know enough about Obamacare except from an operational point of view as I worked for an American firm involved in benefits outsourcing. Removing that seems almost cruel, but President Trump just did it.
We have several such instances where one party created a beautiful office space and when the rival party took office they just abandoned it, wasting taxpayers money.
Guess there is much to be done across the world by regular people like you and I :).