Congress woos urban voters with Indira canteens ahead of Karnataka polls

In an effort to consolidate his urban vote base, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday opened over 100 Indira canteens in Bengaluru, which would offer subsidised food for the urban poor. 

"Indira Canteens will play a significant role in alleviating urban hunger, especially helping the working class and migrant labour community," Siddaramaiah said. 

The canteens offer breakfast at Rs 5 and lunch and dinner at Rs 10, with each outlet to serve around 500 people at a time.

"Many people in Bengaluru live in huge houses, drive cars and for them food is not an issue. But millions of people here are construction workers, auto rickshaw drivers and barbers who do not have enough money. The Indira Canteens will serve these people," Gandhi said while opening the first canteen in Jayanagar.

Siddaramaiah has often been blamed for focusing on rural Karnataka, at the cost of the state capital, which generates two-thirds of the taxes. 

With less than a year for the assembly elections, Siddaramaiah has been making efforts to appease the voters in Bengaluru by launching a slew of infrastructure projects, for the startup ecosystem, and also the urban poor with Indira Canteens, modelled on the Amma canteen that brought back the late J Jayalalithaa into power in neighbouring Tamil Nadu.

The government's neglect of the city's infrastructure was evident on Independence Day, when parts of South Bengaluru was inundated with overflowing drainage water, following heavy rains in the city. The highly polluted Bellandur lake added to the woes.

Even with the first phase of Bengaluru Metro operational, the city is still known for its bumper to bumper traffic, with vehicles in main arteries driving at less than 10 kmph.

With start-ups rationalising staff or shutting down due to funding crunch and uncertainty in the export focused IT services firms, jobs have been impacted in Bengaluru. The trickle effect that benefited the poor in the city is also now strained.

Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi said the state would open more such canteens, named after his grandmother and former prime minister Indira Gandhi, in Bengaluru and other cities of the state. 

Siddaramaiah hopes that Indira Canteens will help him retain the urban voter base, which has been sliding towards the BJP since the historic Parliamentary elections that voted Narendra Modi as the prime minister.

Congress has 13 legislators, five of whom are ministers, from 28 seats in Bengaluru.

In the 2013 parliamentary polls, BJP won all the three seats in Bengaluru. Two out of the three—MPs Ananth Kumar and Sadananda Gowda—are Union Ministers.

The August 2015 elections for the city corporation, saw BJP get 100 of the 198 seats in Bengaluru, but lost to Siddaramaiah who aligned with Janata Dal (Secular), the party headed by former prime minister H D Deve Gowda.

Bengaluru corporation with a budget of nearly Rs 100,000 crore for fiscal 2017-18, is among the richest cities in the country.