While Karnataka’s capital city Bengaluru witnesses severe waterlogging that has paralyzed several parts of the city, top business executives were seen rising on tractors and boats with families to their safety. Luxury cars and and vehicles were submerged and people had to flee leaving behind their belongings as water gushed into their dwellings. Amid such chaos and inconvenience, #LeaveBengaluru started trending on microblogging platform Twitter on Wednesday.
What led to people asking ‘migrants’ to leave Bengaluru?
Karnataka’s capital city Bengaluru is also the IT hub of the country. Deemed as the ‘Silicon Valley of India’ Bengaluru remains one of the most cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic and multi-lingual cities in the country.
The IT hub has made headlines in the past couple of days owing to incessant rains that has left several parts of the city flooded. The grim situation has brought to the forefront the poor city planning and encroachments on lakes, stormwater drains and land through which rainwater naturally flows.
However, ‘locals’ of Bengaluru have pointed out that ‘migrants’ who have come to the city in ‘search of shelter, food, job’ should not criticise the city. They have furthered their claim and said that migrants should leave the city if ‘they have a problem’.
Several hateful tweets emerged late on Wednesday with the hashtags Leave Bengaluru, Get Lost Migrants. One user wrote “When it rains in chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, then Pray for chennai, prayer of mumbai Pray for delhi… But when it’s raining in bengaluru, then Bengluru is worst city ever we seen… Stop this nonsense”
“They came to me..Made a career..Bot a premium home..Partied..Enjoyed weather n night life..shifted their family’s..got a life without learning my language #Kannada till yesterday ????..Today they call me “Ghanta” city..Your’s Truly, #Bengaluru.#LeaveBengaluru #GetLostMigrants
“Dear Migrants our Bengaluru is still better than these ????????” wrote another user
Bengaluru Flood Update
Although floodwaters receded here in some areas, the images of people rushing out of submerged localities in tractors is set to linger on in people’s memory for long and the only silver lining now is the respite from torrential rains.
According to official sources, waterlogging has been cleared in most roads, while work is on for draining water in other affected areas. Traffic is almost returning to near-usual levels and complete normalcy is hoped soon. For people, whose routine life was thrown out of gear due to the showers, the respite is that the rains have stopped.
Some of the top business executives residing in ‘Epsilon’, a gated community in North Bengaluru, had never dreamt that they would get a “feel of Venice” in their locality. Several tycoons got stranded in their own homes due to flooding triggered by two-days of heavy rains. Home to billionaires, the starting price of a villa in Epsilon is at least ₹10 crore.
However, the eye catching locality near Nagawara itself turned into an extension of the Nagawara lake during the deluge. High end cars were submerged, household belongings washed away, and the dwellers of this posh locality near Manyata Techpark rode on tractors and boats with families to their safety.
Vinod Kaushik, CEO of a construction startup had to evacuate his house with his family in a tractor. Another evacuee was Meena Girisaballa, the Founder and the CEO of PurpleFront Technologies. She rued that the entire gated property was flooded as the stormwater drain gushed into their homes. The trouble was not limited to Epsilon.
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