Karnataka Minister Priyank Kharge’s attempt to frame Bengaluru’s traffic nightmare as a sign of growth has backfired.

Speaking at the Mobility Symposium 2025, Kharge called the city’s gridlocked roads as a “good problem to have”, a remark many saw as tone-deaf in a city where daily commutes can stretch for hours.

“About 75.5 percent of Bengaluru’s population is part of the working population. We rank fourth globally. It’s a good problem to have traffic issues — it shows we’re growing, though we must solve it,” Kharge said while addressing the event.

The minister, who heads the rural development and panchayat raj department, justified his statement by pointing to the city’s economic momentum. “To give you some context, last year nearly 77.92 million square feet was sold to global capability centres in the top seven cities, and 47 percent of that was in Bengaluru. That’s the kind of growth we’re witnessing,” he said.

Kharge added that Bengaluru’s booming job market continues to attract the highest number of migrants.

“We are creating jobs here,” he said, noting that the city now has approximately 1.2 crore registered vehicles, around 82 lakh two-wheelers and 25 lakh four-wheelers.

His remarks sparked outrage on social media, where users accused him of trivialising one of Bengaluru’s biggest civic crises. BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla called Kharge’s logic “bizarre.”

“Nepo Kid & Rahul Gandhi’s close aide Priyank Kharge gives a bizarre logic to justify traffic woes in Bengaluru. He says ‘It’s a good problem to have traffic issues — it shows we’re growing.’ Maybe somebody should tell him Fixing potholes, Improving infra, Getting Karnataka economy & budget in track will be better signs of growth! And of course Blackbuck and other companies are not being forced to leave due to slow moving traffic and dangerous roads,” Poonawalla said.

Kharge later tried to put his remarks in perspective through a post on X.

“We’re one of the fastest-growing cities in the world, with our GDP projected to grow at over 8.5 per cent annually for the next decade. 58,913 new vehicles were registered in August 2025 alone. While these numbers are a reflection of a growing city it is also an indication of why our roads are bursting at the seams. The government is solving these challenges collaboratively with think tanks and corporations,” he wrote.

Kharge later clarified that his words had been taken out of context. “I didn’t say it’s good to have traffic issues; it’s good to solve issues when you are prospering,” he said.

Karnataka deputy chief minister D.K. Shivakumar at a governance conference on Wednesday said, “In London, people spend three hours in traffic. In Delhi, it takes one-and-a-half hours to travel from the airport to Parliament. But only Bengaluru's traffic has more noise. Why? Because we haven't curbed media freedom.”