Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar’s defence of Bengaluru’s tunnel road project, in which he said “people don’t marry daughters to men who don’t own cars”, has drawn a sharp response from BJP MP Tejasvi Surya. Surya, who met Shivakumar with a request to scrap the tunnel road project and expand mass transport, has taken a swipe, saying the tunnel road is “intended to solve a social problem – of people not wanting to marry a man without car”.
Earlier, Shivakumar said Tejasvi Surya doesn’t understand the social obligations behind people buying cars. “Can I stop you from bringing your vehicle? It’s a matter of social responsibility. People prefer to travel in their own vehicles with their families. Can we prevent them from using their cars? If needed, MPs can appeal to their constituents to leave their cars at home and use public transport. Let us see how many actually follow that. Today, people even hesitate to marry their daughter to a boy who doesn’t own a car,” he told the media.
Sharing a newspaper report on the Deputy Chief Minister’s remark, the Bengaluru South MP said, “For all these days, I was under the wrong impression that the tunnel project was aimed at solving Bengaluru traffic problem. Now, DCM has clarified that it is intended to solve a social problem – of people not wanting to marry a man without car. How stupid I was!”
Surya said that in his meeting with Shivakumar, he presented an alternative vision for mobility that focuses on prioritising public transport. “However, the Deputy Chief Minister has rejected all our proposals, stating that he does not agree with our plan to expand the Metro network to 300 km with a 3-minute frequency,” Surya said. “We also suggested strengthening BMTC services and introducing small private feeder buses to connect inner neighbourhoods and narrow roads, but these ideas were not accepted,” he added.
Traffic jams in Bengaluru are a driver’s nightmare and are often the subject of rants and memes on social media. Shivakumar has long argued that the tunnel road project is a long-term solution to the IT capital’s traffic woes.
Surya, however, contends that the tunnel road plan will hurt the environment and is not a sustainable solution to Bengaluru’s mobility problems.
Following their meeting, Shivakumar said Surya had given him a presentation. “He had some suggestions and a PPT; I have asked officers to look into it,” he told reporters. However, he said the traffic congestion in the city is already severe and was sceptical about how allowing more buses would solve the problem.
