Amidst the ongoing tussle for credit among BJP, Congress and anata Dal (Secular) for the Bengaluru-Mysuru Expressway which will be inaugurated on Sunday, the Aam Aadmi Party in Mysuru on Saturday said the parties were fighting amongst themselves conveniently forgetting that the expressway was built from the taxpayers’ money.
Hitting out at the parties for wrangling for claiming the credit, AAP’s Mysuru district president L. Rangaiah said, “If anyone has a right to inaugurate the expressway, it is the ordinary taxpayer.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is inaugurating the 10-lane expressway at Gejjalagere near Mandya on Sunday.
“On November 14, 2013 while speaking at Chattisgarh on the Central funds to the State, Mr. Modi, who was then the Gujarat Chief Minister, had asked a very pertinent question to Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi “Did the funds for Chhattisgarh come from your maternal uncle’s house?”. We can revisit that question today,” Mr. Rangaiah said in a press statement here.
When the government projects go forward at snail’s pace and cost overrun multiple times that of original estimate, none of these people (elected representatives and politicians) are answerable. But, they are ready for the inauguration of the project. “In Delhi, the first foot overbridge built by the AAP government was inaugurated on May 1, 2015 by etching the names of all labourers who worked on the site by the then Deputy CM Manish Sisodia. We need that kind of culture in public works,” he argued.
Under the JNNURM project in Mysuru, four flyovers were sanctioned and an amount of ₹65 crore was released to be built by the MUDA in 2014 itself. However, after nine years, only one at Hinkal ORR junction was completed and there is no information about the other three. The three parties must be answerable as to who is responsible for this since all of them were in power during this nine-year period, the AAP asked..
“The expressway is not a free road, the users will have to pay to use it and will continue to pay even after money has been recovered several times over. Karnataka already has 16 such toll booths as already reported in the media,” the party said, accusing the toll centres of taking the motorists for a ride.
