The Minister Who Asks the Same Questions We Do

When Sri Krishna Byre Gowda took charge as Bengaluru’s Development Minister, there was visible hesitation before he accepted the portfolio. Since then, he has often sounded less like the head of the department and more like its sharpest critic.

As a Bengalurean, I find that oddly reassuring—and yet unsettling.

The questions he asks are the very questions citizens have been asking for years. Why does a freshly laid road develop potholes within weeks? Why are hundreds of trees removed in the name of development, while promises of compensatory planting rarely materialize? Why do budgets run into hundreds or thousands of crores, yet visible improvements on the ground remain so difficult to find?

These are not unreasonable questions. In fact, they are necessary ones.

A minister should question bureaucrats. Accountability begins with asking difficult questions. But questioning is only the first half of the job. The public asks questions because it has little power beyond its vote. The opposition asks questions because that is its constitutional role.

A minister, however, possesses something neither of them does—the authority to demand action.

The sketch captures that paradox. A small boy struggles to pull back a smiling bureaucratic balloon. His shadow carries a question mark, while the bureaucracy casts something far more monstrous. Questions are important. But unless they are followed by decisions, enforcement and measurable change, they remain only questions.

Bengaluru does not merely need another voice asking what went wrong. It needs someone who can ensure that things finally go right.

Asking questions is the beginning of accountability. Acting on the answers is the responsibility of leadership.

A related reflection

Decisions about a city are made in offices and meeting rooms. Their consequences, however, are lived on its streets. Read Nothing Is Made, Nothing Disappears.