BENGALURU: With the elections round the corner, the opposition Congress has been actively gathering information from ground zero through a survey to prepare itself better. Many Bengalureans have been receiving calls from an unidentified survey agency, asking them if they are facing any problems related to
road, water, streetlight or other civic amenities. The caller is usually conversant with Kannada, English and Hindi. Dozens of people have received calls over the last few days.
Some Bengalureans posted their responses to the survey on Facebook and other social media sites.
A senior woman journalist from the Shantinagar Assembly constituency said, “I got the call from 8050082448, which was the AICC war room number in Delhi. The caller asked whether I was facing any civic and other urban issues and how I felt about services of the area MLA and previous corporator, etc.’’
On verifying, it was found that it is Congress’ initiative from New Delhi. The survey comes in the backdrop of polls in the state. KPCC president DK Shivakumar had referred to it sometime back while talking to the media.
KPCC working president and MLC Saleem Ahmed said, “The party is carrying out the survey to get feedback on the problems being faced by the people. It is being done ward wise to prepare for the upcoming polls.’’
Former Rajya Sabha member Prof Rajeev Gowda, who is head of the party’s manifesto committee and co-convenor of the Better Bengaluru Committee, said, “There have been complaints arising out of tremendous dissatisfaction and anger among people. Many of these responses were evident during the recent floods. We have decided to come up with a vision solution and manifesto to empower the citizens. We are getting the inputs by calling the people directly.’’