Deshpande to Centre: make B'luru India's second capital

Bengaluru: Industries Minister R V Deshpande has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking to make Bengaluru India's second capital.  

In his letter to Modi dated January 5, made public on Friday, Deshpande has stated that India needs a second capital very urgently and Bengaluru was "best placed to fulfill that role."

A country of the size and scale of India cannot be managed from one location, the minister stated.    "It is also important to pay attention to the long-held feeling among people of the southern Indian states that Delhi is far away and the decisions and processes of governance and administration are not responsive to the demands of South India."

Bengaluru is India's most cosmopolitan city and safe from natural calamities. Deshpande wrote "It is also safe from attacks of external forces as it is not close to the physical borders of the country." The city houses people with many different languages and "probably the only city where one could find a large number of software engineers as much as classical language scholars." Deshpande added that Bengaluru had "cultural diversity" and "civic robustness" and was India's innovation capital.

Making Bengaluru India's second capital would require establishing a second seat of the Supreme Court, a second Union Public Service Commission office and conduct of the winter session of Parliament in the city, Deshpande suggested. "It would give voice to the aspirations of millions of south Indians to feel that they are part of the national mainstream."

Deshpande has also written to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, urging him to take up the matter of making Bengaluru India's second capital with the Centre.