Karnataka govt spending over Rs 1 lakh cr to improve infrastructure in Bengaluru city: Shivakumar
Bengaluru (PTI): Pitching Bengaluru as an "ever-evolving engine of transformation", Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar on Tuesday said that the state government is improving the infrastructure by spending over Rs 1 lakh crore on the city.
Shivakumar, who is also the Minister incharge of Bengaluru Development, was speaking at the inaugural of the 28th edition of Bengaluru Tech Summit 2025.
Touted to be Asia's largest technology event, it is being organised by the Department of Electronics, IT & Bt, Government of Karnataka and Software Technology Parks of India (STPI).
"We recognise that technology, innovation, and investment flourish only when the foundations are strong. That's why our government is accelerating infrastructure at unprecedented speed," Shivakumar said.
Addressing the gathering, he highlighted that the government has launched mega infrastructure projects in Bengaluru -- twin tunnel project of 40 KMs at Rs 42,500 crore, double Decker Metro 41 KMs at Rs 18,000 crore, elevated corridor 110 KMs at Rs 15,000 crore, buffer roads 320 KMs at Rs 5,000 crore, SkyDeck at Rs 500 crore, and Bangalore Business Corridor of 74 KMs at Rs 27,000 crore.
"We are spending over 1 lakh crore on Bengaluru city to improve infrastructure," he added.
Pointing out that a second airport is being planned for Bengaluru, the Deputy CM said, in order to help and co-ordinate the NRI's, the Government of Karnataka is starting a separate Secretariat for NRIs.
"We are developing residential layouts for NRI's; a world class city near Bidadi in 9,000 acres - AI City. We are building an international complex to house all international business houses," he said, adding that no other cities match Bengaluru weather and culture.
Asserting that technology and talent are Bengaluru's twin pillars, Shivakumar said, Bengaluru's strength lies not just in its infrastructure or policy incentives--it lies in its people.
Appealing industry captains to help the government in making rural education strong with CSR, while stating that necessary policies are being brought in this regard, the Deputy CM said, together, let us build a future where technology, creativity, and enterprise create opportunities not only for our state or our country, but for the entire world.
"I assure you on behalf of Karnataka that we will co-operate and extend all possible support for mutual growth," he said.
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Oath-taking ceremony of first BJP govt in Bengal on May 9; Modi, Shah likely to attend
Kolkata (PTI): The oath-taking ceremony of the first BJP government in West Bengal will be held at Brigade Parade Ground here on May 9, marking the saffron camp’s arrival in power in a state after decades on the political fringes.
The ceremony, scheduled to begin at 10 am, is expected to witness the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP president Nitin Nabin, several Union ministers and chief ministers of BJP- and NDA-ruled states, party sources said.
“The new BJP government will take oath on May 9 at 10 am at Brigade Parade Ground,” state BJP president Samik Bhattacharya announced on Wednesday.
Even as the BJP leadership kept its cards close to the chest on the chief ministerial face, Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari has emerged as a frontrunner in internal discussions after cementing his position as the party’s principal mass leader in Bengal politics.
Adhikari, once among Mamata Banerjee’s closest lieutenants and a key architect of the TMC’s rural expansion in districts such as Purba Medinipur, crossed over to the BJP ahead of the 2021 assembly elections and went on to defeat Banerjee in Nandigram in one of Bengal’s fiercest political battles.
Five years later, he again found himself at the centre of Bengal’s political churn by beating Banerjee in her own turf at Bhabanipur by over 15,000 votes.
Other names for the CM post doing the rounds include Bhattacharya, Union minister Sukanta Majumdar and former Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta, though party insiders indicated that the leadership was inclined towards projecting a “bhumiputra” face rooted in Bengal’s linguistic and cultural ethos.
During the campaign, Shah repeatedly asserted that the BJP’s chief minister in Bengal would be a “son of the soil”, born and educated in the state, in an attempt to blunt the TMC’s sustained attack that the BJP represented an “outsider” political culture alien to Bengal’s social and intellectual traditions.
The BJP bagged 207 of the 294 assembly seats in the recently concluded elections, ending the Trinamool Congress’s uninterrupted 15-year rule and scripting the saffron party’s biggest breakthrough in a state where it once struggled to open its electoral account.
Significantly, the swearing-in ceremony will be held on the 25th day of Baisakh in the Bengali calendar — observed across the state as Rabindra Jayanti, the birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore — lending the event a deeper cultural symbolism.
According to BJP leaders, the choice of the date is aimed at embedding the party’s historic rise within Bengal’s cultural imagination and countering the long-standing perception battle over identity and belonging.
Over the last decade, the BJP has steadily attempted to appropriate and reinterpret icons of Bengal’s cultural nationalism — from Tagore and Swami Vivekananda to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Syama Prasad Mookerjee — as part of a broader ideological effort to expand its emotional and political footprint in the state.
Party insiders said the leadership was also conscious of the need to balance Bengal’s competing regional aspirations while choosing the chief ministerial face, with discussions also taking place around whether greater representation should be accorded to north Bengal, a region where the BJP has made substantial electoral gains over successive elections.
A meeting of the newly elected BJP MLAs has been convened on May 8 evening, party sources said, though the leadership remained tight-lipped over the final choice.
The Brigade Parade Ground ceremony is expected to mark not merely a transfer of power, but a defining moment in Bengal’s political history, the culmination of the BJP’s long ideological and organisational march from the margins to the centre of power in a state that had for decades resisted the saffron surge seen elsewhere in India.
