CM Siddaramaiah has written to Centre, BJP politicising issue: Karnataka minister over Bengaluru metro fare hike

Kalaburagi (Karnataka) [India], February 9 (ANI): Karnataka Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao on Sunday slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party for politicising the metro fare hike issue, saying that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has already written to Centre, which has an equal stake in Bengaluru's 'Namma Metro', to not increase the prices.
"Unnecessarily the BJP people want to make politics out of everything. The metro is run by the State and Central Govt and it is a separate corporation. CM has already written to the Government of India to not increase the fare. Now, Tejasvi Surya is saying that they are not going to increase, so let there be an official order, then we will see," the Karnataka minister told reporters here.
Rao also spoke on the CM change issue, saying that the decision is upto the Congress high command, and that there is no confusion within the party.
""There is nothing. It is up to the party high command. What Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi decide is final. That is what even CM and DCM have said. That is what all the party people have said," Rao said.
Rao's comments come a day after Bharatiya Janata Party MP Tejasvi Surya blamed the Congress party for misrepresenting the fare hike issue, saying that it was the state government which had originally asked for the hike. Surya claimed that the state is in a 'weak financial position' after years 'shadow cash support'
"Karnataka government officials demanded an upward revision of fares due to the state government's financial position. They also requested that we initiate an automatic annual fare revision process... Because the state is in a weak financial position today, it cannot continue providing the shadow cash support it had been providing for years," the BJP leader said.
He further said that in 2025, a 105 per cent fare increase was initiated, and this time, the now rolled back order would have increased fares by 5 per cent, making tickets around Rs 1 to Rs 5 cheaper. To not make public transport "prohibitively expensive", Surya demanded the state government initiate a fare rationalisation process.
"The purpose of public transport will be undermined if metro travel becomes prohibitively expensive. We are once again demanding that the state government initiate the process for periodic fare revisions, as the law mandates. We are asking the state government to initiate this process and rationalise fares so that metro users are not further harassed," he told reporters.
Earlier on Sunday, the Namma Metro, officially known as the Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) announced that the February 5 proposed fare hike has been kept on hold.
"Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Limited hereby informs that the media release dated 5 February 2025, announced the implementation of the Annual Fare Revision with effect from 9 February 2026, has been kept on hold till further orders," read an official statement from the BMRCL.
"The decision on the revised fare will be communicated after the board's review," the statement added.
BMRCL is a joint venture of Government of India, and Government of Karnataka. A 'Special Purpose Vehicle' (SPV), it is entrused with the responsibility of implementation and operation of Bangalore Metro Rail Project.
Bengaluru has over 97 kilometres of metro rail currently in operation, with two lines connecting the length and breadth of the city, and a third one set to be operational in the future. (ANI)