Bengaluru, 30 April

Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R Ashoka on Thursday asked why the ruling Congress was yet again caught off guard by the downpour a day earlier, noting that “pre-monsoon showers in Bengaluru are not unusual”.

In a statement on X, he said that the attempts to dismiss the rain-related deaths as an “act of nature” were “not only an injustice to the victims and their families, but also a convenient evasion of responsibility. What we witnessed was not a natural disaster - it was a failure of governance and preparedness.”

“No civilised society should accept a reality where citizens lose their lives to potholes, exposed electric wires, or collapsing structures,” he added.

Ashoka stated that he was not politicising the issue, but instead sought to know what concrete steps the government had taken so far to safeguard citizens’ lives with monsoon weeks away.

“A dedicated task force should be constituted immediately to overhaul Bengaluru’s crumbling infrastructure and ensure robust monsoon preparedness,” he suggested.

Meanwhile, BJP MP Tejasvi Surya posted a video of Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar saying that preventive measures would be taken based on a report every year from 2023. 

He asked whether Chief Minister Siddaramaiah wanted to turn the “Silicon City” into a “Water City”, noting that floods had become the norm every year.