BJP to unveil Hyderabad-centric manifesto

​Hyderabad: In view of impending Assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) State unit is working on developing a manifesto after consultations with all stakeholder groups. In this connection, Karuna Gopal, President Foundation for Futuristic Cities, who is the incharge for BJP Manifesto for Urban Telangana and the Hyderabad held a round table on Saturday with experts, activists and thought leaders to get inputs on environment, traffic and transportation issues. She is planning to hold series of such meetings with experts from different fields over the next few days.

Speaking in the meeting, Karuna Gopal said that the BJP wishes to develop a scientific manifesto for Urban Telangana, especially the City of Hyderabad. “Hyderabad has the greatest potential to give highest quality of life. But unfortunately, today the city is just growing economically. We notice that both environmental indicators and social equity factors are completely neglected. Can a city run only one leg of economic development? The city is ‘fragile’ and ‘vulnerable’ to floods, excessive rainfall and excessive heat. The disease burden is very high because of water and air pollution. Also, Hyderabad ranks very low on HIGS Assessment (Hazards, Infrastructure, Governance and Social Development),” she said.

Karuna Gopal further added that the BJP will not draft the manifesto sitting in isolation at party office. “We will speak to various stakeholders, understand their points, get inputs from experts and super impose our research on the city to arrive at a Manifesto for the future of Hyderabad,” Karuna Gopal said. MP Bandaru Dattatreya, MLC and BJP city president N Ramachander Rao also attended the meeting along with host of experts from various fields.

MP Bandaru Dattatreya said that need of the hour was decentralisation of water supply, sewer and waste network and disposal, pollution control measures etc. He called for better civic sense among citizens to assist government’s decisions and policies so that results are successful.Ramachander Rao said that the BJP will cater to urban, rural, industries, employment etc. needs of the population in its election manifesto.