The next elections to the Karnataka State Assembly will witness a new political outfit joining the fray.
The Karnataka Makkala Paksha (Party of Karnataka’s children), floated by Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE) Ltd’s Managing Director Ashok Kheny disclosed here on Monday his party would fight the forthcoming Assembly elections in the state.
“We are setting up candidates to fight for 100 seats. We have already registered over 800,000 members for the party,” he told Business Standard, expressing confidence of winning a considerable number of seats.
“We have good strength in Hyderabad-Karnataka area. So also in some districts like Chitradurga, Chamarajanagar and Mysore. We believe we can win 60 seats,” Kheny said and expressed confidence that the next Assembly elections would bring a badly needed fresh wave of change in Karnataka, where people are witnessing political uncertainties and poor infrastructure and other developments. “For the first time, middle class voters will exercise their franchise,” he added.
While the Congress party would be nowhere, BJP and Janata Dal (S) of H D Deve Gowda would align and destroy each other. Former Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa who has announced of going his own way deserting the BJP may have some backing in Mumbai Karnataka area, Kheny, whose NICE project is stuck in limbo now, predicted.
Of the 111 kms of the NICE expressway project linking Bangalore and Mysore, he said, so far only 16 kms had been completed and 95 kms remained to be taken up. “If lands are given to us, we will finish the project in 15 months,” he said hoping of an early solution to the project which has made very little headway over the past 19 years due to administrative and legal hurdles, apart from political and other issues.
So far, Rs 3,000 crore had been spent on the project, he said and added, “The only revenue generated is by way of toll.”
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Banking his hope on the Supreme Court and law, the NICE MD said, the project would become a reality. He also expressed confidence that the forthcoming polls in the state would help resume the project work which has come to a standstill now.
“The Supreme Court is having its final hearing in six weeks from October 5. Probably after Diwali holidays, it will be taken up for final hearing. We are confident we will be able to speed up the work after this,” he said, recalling that on previous occasions, the apex court had taken the state government to task over the issue.
Kheny, who hoped to reach Mysore in two hours from Bangalore, arrived 90 minutes later because of the humps and other obstacles on way. He participated in an interaction with the Mysore Chamber of Commerce & Industry members.
Through a power-point presentation, he explained the present status and hurdles that stood in the way of the project being completed. Chamber President S Sudhakar Shetty and members stressed the urgent need to complete the project to improve connectivity between two cities.