If potholes resemble rulers’ faces...

With barely two years to go for the hurly-burly of hustings, politicos in the state seem to be warming up for the big fight, if the occasional rallying cries are anything to go by. However, the people at the helm of affairs of the government are busy making tall claims of the achievement that they have made so far, and how they are poised to make the state a ‘golden one’ in the days to come.

While Municipal Administration and Urban Development Minister K T Rama Rao has said his administration was all set to transform the state capital on par with international standards, Mohan Kumar Inaganti, a software engineer, was a sullen soul, as the front tyre of his brand-new Ford Ecosport got blasted on the ravaged roads of Sultan Bazaar in the same bucketing evening while he was on his way back home.

Opposition parties and social and civil right groups are up in arms against the government and the municipal corporation for the deplorable state of the city roads. And the authorities, on their part, are busy repairing the damaged thoroughfares overnight, only to make the roads worse after a couple of days.

Shifting of protest sites and caning of agitators by the powers that be seemed to be the order of the day, in an apparent attempt to stifle public dissent. And all the hue and cry of the common populace seems to have fallen in deaf ears.

It is in this context, one recalls the political climate in Yekaterinburg, Russia some years ago when an ad agency - Voskhod – took on the authorities that neglected the city’s infrastructure one day too long. After repeatedly commenting and complaining about the pockmarked streets of Yekaterinburg, local blog URA.RU turned to Voskhod to create a brilliant campaign: under the cover of night they would paint the faces of local politicians around the most-unsightly potholes and potentially shame them into action. The response? It worked!

Quality of roads was the eternal problem of Yekaterinburg – the fourth largest city of Russia. The local site URA.RU, which writes about life in the city, decided to remind politicians that it was their duty to repair the roads. The problem is – our politicians don’t care a hoot about potholes. Their only worry is their own public image. The activists associated road holes with the images of certain politicians. At one night, on three potholes in the city centre, they drew faces of the Governor, the Mayor and the Vice-Mayor.