Steel and Signal

The subtext of Modi’s Bengaluru metro ride is to wrest narrative control from a Congress government equally determined to claim credit for the city’s long-delayed progress.

Karnataka

The optics were carefully engineered when Prime Minister Narendra Modi boarded the gleaming Yellow Line of Bengaluru’s metro flanked by Karnataka’s Congress chief minister Siddaramaiah and his wily deputy D.K. Shivakumar. The Prime Minister inaugurated a 19 km stretch from RV Road to Bommasandra, linking the city’s sprawling IT hub in Electronic City with the residential and industrial south. The line, part of Phase 2 of the metro, has cost Rs. 7,160 crore while adding 16 stations to what is now India’s second-largest metro network after Delhi’s.

But beneath the stainless-steel glamour, the ceremony was a classic exercise in political calibration. Karnataka, the BJP’s only foothold in southern India until it lost the state in the 2023 assembly election, remains a prize worth contesting. The Congress government has turned Bengaluru’s infrastructure woes into a cudgel against the BJP. Modi’s presence in the city, therefore, was less about cutting ribbons than cutting into Congress’s narrative.

The Yellow Line’s opening was a symbol of the BJP’s attempt to reassert relevance in a state. Bengaluru voters are aspirational but also weary of stalled infrastructure and choking congestion. If Modi can claim credit for delivering a marquee urban project despite its three-year delay caused by pandemic disruptions and supply-chain troubles after Indo-China tensions, the BJP hopes to chip away at Congress’s advantage.

That advantage is personified in Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar, a political double act as different in temperament as they are united in ambition. Siddaramaiah, the veteran socialist-turned-Congressman, delights in skewering Modi’s policies, most recently over Washington’s 50 percent tariff on Indian goods. Shivakumar, a master of ground-level mobilisation, has long been eyeing the chief minister’s post for himself while cultivating his image as Bengaluru’s chief fixer.

And yet, for a few hours on Sunday, hostilities were set aside. Cameras captured the trio smiling, chatting, and waving to crowds. The optics suited all parties: Modi as the statesman welcomed even by his fiercest critics; Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar as gracious hosts willing to share a platform in the name of Karnataka’s progress. The bonhomie signalled a grudging recognition on both sides that Bengaluru’s infrastructure cannot be weaponised without also being delivered.

For Congress, the challenge is to prevent Modi from owning the metro’s success. The project was initiated under previous governments and shepherded through multiple political regimes. Yet, as Indian voters have often shown, the leader who cuts the ribbon often reaps the political benefit, regardless of who laid the foundation. Modi’s metro ride, complete with selfies with students, was choreographed to reinforce his image as a man in motion.

The BJP’s Karnataka unit sees urban infrastructure as one of the few levers it can pull to regain ground. Rural discontent, caste politics and the Congress’s populist guarantees have eroded its reach elsewhere. But Bengaluru’s electorate is more susceptible to appeals about speed, connectivity, and modernisation - areas where the BJP believes it can outshine Congress.

History suggests the strategy is not far-fetched. The launch of the metro’s Purple Line between Baiyappanahalli and M.G. Road in 2011 was championed by the then BJP government under B.S. Yediyurappa, which touted it as proof of its pro-development credentials. A few years later, Congress’s Siddaramaiah sought to blunt BJP’s urban edge by fast-tracking the east–west extension and ensuring high-profile inaugurations. Each ribbon-cutting has doubled as a campaign event, with both parties eager to turn station openings into symbols of efficiency. In a state where civic infrastructure projects often crawl, the party seen as delivering momentum stands to benefit disproportionately.

Yet the political rails are not entirely smooth. The Yellow Line is a reminder of Karnataka’s chronic project delays: approved in 2014, construction began in 2017 and has only now been completed. The Congress government will be quick to blame any shortcomings on the Centre; the BJP will counter that the delays were the result of pandemic disruptions and foreign-sourced equipment stuck in customs limbo. The larger contest ultimately is over narrative ownership.