A day after former Minister and BJP MLA representing Krishnaraja Assembly constituency S.A. Ramdas took on party’s Mysuru MP Pratap Simha, it was the turn of BJP’s Chamaraja MLA L. Nagendra to raise questions on the repair of the roads that will be dug up for implementing the Central Government project, backed by the MP, to lay a pipeline for supplying cooking gas to houses.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Mr. Nagendra said the roads in the city, including the ones coming under his constituency, had been repaired at a cost of ₹300 to 400 crore over the last 3-4 years. But, the company executing the project is reportedly paying only ₹99 crore after digging up about 500 km of the road to lay the gas pipeline. “Who will bear the remaining among for repair of the roads”, he questioned.
He said he had also written to the Mayor and Commissioner of Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) in the regard.
He said he has asked the MCC Commissioner how many kilometres of road will be dug up in his constituency and whether the cost had been calculated for its repair. He said he will not have any objection to the project sanctioned by the Centre and welcomed more such projects. He said he would leave it to the people to decide if he is wrong in raising questions over the repair of the roads that will be dug up for the project.
The elected representatives of MCC too shared the same concern over the threat to roads from the project. He said the MCC corporators did not know much about the company implementing the project and its owner.
Mr. Nagendra, however, hit out at Mr. Simha for his reported remarks that he has also received as many votes as they had received from their respectively constituencies when he contested the elections to the Lok Sabha. The BJP MLA claimed that they had won because of the hard work of the party workers and party corporators and also pointed out that JD(S) had not fielded a candidate in the last Lok Sabha elections from Mysuru.
He said a people’s representative should earn the trust of the people not by words, but by deeds.
It may be mentioned here that Mr. Simha and Mr. Ramdas had locked horns on Thursday over the implementation of the project after it transpired that the BJP MLAs had asked the corporators not to back the project as it entailed digging up of the roads.
Consequently, a meeting of the MCC Council convened on Thursday to discuss the piped gas project had to be adjourned due to lack of quorum after corporators stayed away from the meeting.
