Nearly 42,000 people have “voted” their opposition to the ambitious Rs. 1,791-crore steel flyover project, claimed the Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB), an organisation spearheading the protest movement, after a “referendum” conducted.
For nearly two days, over 100 volunteers of the organisation spread themselves across the city to elicit opinion against the project and on Sunday, the ‘sealed’ ballot boxes were brought to a expert consultation programme and enumerated.
Srinivas Allavilli, a volunteer, said in all 41,848 “beda” (No) votes had been tabulated through their campaign. Each vote has an accompanying phone number to ensure allegations of bogus support do not surface. “This is nearly 200 times the number of 219 pro-flyover responses the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) claimed during their public consultation,” he said. Of the BDA’s 299 responses to the project, the authority had claimed that nearly three-fourths of the responses supported the project.
The organisation received 10,204 votes against the project from north Bengaluru.
“Many were put off by the fact the bridge will be tolled,” said Mr. Allavilli. The aim, believed the organisation, was to show the State government the political implications of the 6.9-km flyover project.
However, the State government continued to stand by the project. On Sunday, Dinesh Gundu Rao, working president, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) took to Twitter saying that “many were pro-flyover”. “It’s got the making of a landmark project for the country,” he tweeted.
