Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar has defended Bengaluru’s traffic situation, saying that even London experiences three-hour-long traffic jams. Drawing comparisons, he said congestion is not unique to Bengaluru and cited similar situations in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, and other major cities.

‘Even London faces 3-hour jams’

Shivakumar further claimed that the media in Karnataka enjoys greater freedom compared to other states, which, according to him, is why Bengaluru’s traffic woes receive more attention and “noise” on social media and in the press.

“How to sort out? How to sort out the traffic problem? Even in London, they have to travel if they don’t use public transport, if they are in the car for three hours,” DK Shivakumar began. 

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He added, “Even in Delhi, one and a half hours from the airport to the Parliament, you need one and a half hours to travel, but Bangalore is making more noise than Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad or whatever they said, because we are very free to all our friends and our social media is picking up.”

“Next comes the next the artificial intelligence and social media we have given,” the Deputy CM went on to say. 

“We are not curbing, but as far as Tamil Nadu is concerned, as for Andhra Pradesh is concerned, as for other states is concerned, the media is not allowed to work freely, how Karnataka has been open to them,” he further expressed, before adding, “We accept the criticism.”

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‘BLR has traffic management problem’: Social media users

Shivakumar’s comments invited a lot of reactions from social media users, with one saying, “BLR has a traffic management problem. Wrong side driving, illegal parking, far fewer traffic lights than a Tier 2 city and very little manpower for traffic management.”

“Why can’t we build a signal-less road?” asked another social media user. 

A third posted, “How does he arrive at that conclusion? It would be good to serve up some evidence. How many cars are in London? 2.6 million registered in Greater London. Now, define Greater London,” before stressing that he should do some homework.