Bengaluru, July 20 -- BJP leader R Ashoka has strongly criticized Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar's push for a new tunnel road in Bengaluru, denouncing the initiative as both an environmental catastrophe and a symbol of political arrogance and corruption.

Ashoka accused the Congress-led state government of planning to carve a massive tunnel through several of Bengaluru's most iconic and ecologically important areas, including:

- Lalbagh Botanical Garden

- Palace Grounds

- St John's Hospital area

- Bengaluru Race Course

- Hebbal

The project reportedly involves boring 100-feet deep shafts to facilitate tunnel construction, which Ashoka described as not "urban mobility", but "urban mutilation."

Ashoka, who is also the ...