New Delhi: An RTI response has revealed that more than ₹33 crore of public funds were spent on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s one-day visit to Karnataka in February 2023, weeks before the state Assembly elections.
According to a report by Deccan Herald, Modi had visited the state on February 27, 2023, to inaugurate the Shivamogga airport and used the occasion to urge voters to support a “double-engine government”.
Details obtained through a Right to Information (RTI) query, however, showed that the inauguration alone cost the public exchequer ₹18.81 crore. With additional expenditures amounting to ₹14.35 crore, the total spending for the day reportedly reached ₹33.16 crore, the Wire reported.
The RTI documents indicated that several arrangements were made for the event, including hiring around 1,800 buses at a cost of about ₹4.11 crore to transport people from different locations to the venue.
The report also noted that over ₹1.8 crore was spent on infrastructure and arrangements such as a waterproof German-style truss pandal for the main stage, a green room, presentation stalls and flower decorations for the prime minister and other dignitaries.
Following the airport inauguration, Modi travelled to Belagavi by special aircraft and then by helicopter before beginning a roadshow later in the day. While the exact costs of air travel were not included in the available records, additional RTI documents suggested that ₹14.35 crore was spent on this segment of the visit as well, including around ₹2.5 crore for transporting crowds by bus.
The information was obtained by RTI activist Manjunath Hirechowti, associated with the organisation Lanchamuktha Karnataka. The RTI reply also indicated that the state Public Works Department had bypassed the tendering process by invoking Section 4(g) of the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurement Act.
Hirechowti reportedly argued that public funds should not be used as campaign resources, adding that development projects should not be turned into platforms for political promotion in the months leading up to elections.
He suggested that India needed a statutory mechanism to regulate government spending before the model code of conduct takes effect, warning that taxpayers would otherwise continue to bear the burden of politically timed expenditures.
He had filed the RTI request in March 2023 but received a response only in January 2026 after securing a favourable order from the State Information Commission.
When asked about the expenditure, former Karnataka public works minister C. C. Patil reportedly said he could not recall the exact figures.
Reports about the costs associated with the prime minister’s visits to election-bound states have surfaced earlier as well.
In 2023, The Wire analysed the expenses linked to official visits by Modi during election periods, while The Indian Express had earlier reported that civic bodies in Karnataka spent around ₹56 crore on arrangements during the prime minister’s day-long visit for International Yoga Day.