A massive procession and much fanfare trailed Rizwan Arshad, MLA Shivajinagar, who won 2019 by-polls after the disqualification of R Roshan Baig, on his way to file his nomination papers ahead of the May 10 Assembly election on Monday.
Rizwan visited the Ganesha Temple near Kanteerava Stadium, moved to Muthyalamma Temple, St Mary's Basilica in Shivajinagar and the Darga Hazrath Kambalposh on HKP Road, before filing his nomination at the BBMP office in Vasanth Nagar.
"The last three years have been a huge challenge because Shivajinagar constituency was in a bad shape- from infrastructure, garbage disposal, poorly-run government schools, lack of adequate drinking water, sanitation issues and encroached storm water drains that caused a lot of flooding whenever it rained. I had to address issues that remained unsolved for over three decades," Rizwan told DH after filing his nomination.
"But we have put in place a lot of things right from providing water collection to households that never had them to fixing pedestrian paths on 40 roads to refurbishing and resurrecting the Chandini Chowk that remained in shambles for years. We have managed to make Shivajinagar a livable place," he added. All this work is in addition to building six schools, one of them an international school.
Rizwan, who started his career as a member of the Youth Congress at the age of 17 in 1995, has come a long way, after holding several positions such as Senate Member, National General Secretary in 1999 and National General Secretary of the Indian Youth Congress in 2010,
Rizwan became the first elected State President of the Karnataka Pradesh Youth Congress in 2011 and was re-elected in 2014 with a huge margin of votes. He was selected as the Congress candidate from the Bengaluru Central constituency in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.