BENGALURU: Every time a Congress leader lands at the party’s state headquarters on Queen’s Road here, it turns out to be a nightmarish experience for motorists using the road. It was chaos again on Saturday when UPA presidential candidate Meira Kumar visited the office.
Congress leaders’ vehicles were parked along the road, resulting in a traffic pile up that stretched up to the railway under-bridge near Cantonment Station. Traffic came to a halt at 11.10 am after Meira Kumar’s convoy headed from the airport to the KPCC office. Commuters were stopped at various junctions to make way. The bumper-to-bumper traffic jam continued for almost an hour after her arrival.
The city traffic police, who are usually pro-active in towing away vehicles from no-parking areas, were mute spectators to the mess created by the ruling party leaders. And this is almost always the case here.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic-East) Abhishek Goyal did not even want to comment about the issue. When Express asked about the measures the police can take to ease traffic congestion outside the Congress office, he said, “I don’t want to comment about it.”
Motorists curse the never-ending VIP culture which is insensitive to the inconvenience caused to the public. “Whenever there’s a meeting at the KPCC office, huge cars are parked in several rows by the road, blocking traffic. It’s a nightmare on such days and the frequency has increased now. A nearby bus stop only adds to the mess,” says a disgruntled office-goer Sudha Gopalan.
Maheshwar, a commuter on a two-wheeler, said, “Not just the convoy, even the party members are on the road, creating a mess. I do not see any traffic police trying to control their entry on the road.”
A similar scene was seen on May 8, when state party in-charge K C Venugopal visited the office. Whenever Venugopal visits the office, Congress leaders arrive with a large number of followers and their vehicles are parked on the main road. In fact, when the then home minister G Parameshwara and other leaders were waiting outside the office to welcome Venugopal, an ambulance was stuck in the traffic. Police did not bother to make way for it. Police later claimed that the deployed personnel did not hear the siren.