Vehicular traffic restricted to one side of highway to facilitate entourage

The supposed ‘home-coming’ of the District in-charge Minister Ambarish has brought cheers among his supporters and a section of the Congress party workers. However, the common people were not very happy, as the event caused some inconvenience.

Sandeep N S, a student of PES Engineering College, said, he was waiting for a bus for almost one hour to return home in Mysore.

Sonia effect

He said, “I commute to college in Mandya from Mysore. We students are often affected due to such political show-offs. These politicians have no concern for the common people, who have to fend for themselves, irrespective of who gets elected and who comes to power. We were stranded even when Sonia Gandhi addressed a thanks-giving rally in Mandya, a few months back. Even when Rahul Gandhi took out a road show, we were affected,” he said.

K K Chandrasekhar, a marketing manger with a reputed electrical switches company, said, the house of Ambarish in Mandya, which he has rented, has not been opened since the last Assembly elections concluded.

Non-resident

“Even during his electioneering for the Assembly polls, he was staying at the house of one of his supporters on the outskirts of the city. He does not reside in Mandya to describe the event as ‘home-coming’. He has returned home in Bangalore on Friday itself, after recuperating in a foreign country, following illness. He does only politics in Mandya.

People have been carried away by his on-screen charisma. If his supporters wanted to greet him, it should have been a private affair. It should not affect the public,” he said. 

Sources in the Police department said, vehicular traffic was restricted to one side of the road, on stretches of the Mysore-Bangalore highway, at places wherever the entourage passed. “It was also weekend and the vehicles towards Mysore was heavy. S

o the traffic moved slowly. We tried to divert the traffic from Bangalore side, bound for Mysore, via K M Doddi to reach Mandya, at Maddur itself. However, it was not possible as most of the people know that the K M Doddi-Mandya road is bad shape, despite the Maddur-K M Doddi road is motorable,” the official said.