An RTI response has revealed that more than Rs 33 crore of public money was spent on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s one-day visit to Karnataka on February 27, 2023, weeks before the state assembly elections that year.
During the visit, Modi inaugurated the Shivamogga Airport and addressed a public gathering in which he urged voters to support a “double-engine government in future too,” according to a report by Deccan Herald. At the time, the Bharatiya Janata Party was in power in the state, though it later lost the elections.
The RTI query, filed in March 2023 and answered in January 2026, revealed that Rs 18.81 crore was spent on arrangements related to the airport inauguration event alone. Expenses included hiring 1,800 buses at a cost of Rs 4.11 crore to transport attendees from different parts of the state. More than Rs 1.8 crore was spent on infrastructure for the event, including a waterproof German-structure truss pandal for the main stage, green rooms, presentation stalls and floral decorations for the prime minister, the governor and other dignitaries.
After the inauguration, the prime minister travelled to Belagavi by special aircraft and later took a helicopter before participating in a roadshow. While air travel costs were not included in the RTI response, additional documents accessed through the RTI process indicated that Rs 14.35 crore was spent on this leg of the visit. This figure included Rs 2.5 crore for transporting people to the venue.
According to the RTI activist who sought the information, the total expenditure incurred for the one-day visit amounted to Rs 33.16 crore.
The information was obtained by RTI activist and author Manjunath Hirechowti of the organisation Lanchamuktha Karnataka. The documents also revealed that the state’s public works department bypassed the tendering process by invoking Section 4(g) of the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurement Act.
Commenting on the issue, Hirechowti said public funds should not be used for political campaigning. He argued that development-related events should not become platforms for political projection in the months leading up to elections and called for a statutory mechanism to regulate government expenditure before the enforcement of the model code of conduct.
The RTI application had initially not received a response, and the information was released only after the activist obtained a favourable order from the state information commission.
When contacted regarding the expenditure, former public works minister C. C. Patil, who held the portfolio when the BJP governed the state, said he did not recall the exact details of the spending.
Previous reports have also highlighted the public expenditure associated with the prime minister’s visits during election periods. In 2023, The Wire analysed the costs linked to official visits coinciding with state elections, while The Indian Express earlier reported that around Rs 56 crore was spent by civic bodies in Karnataka on arrangements for Modi’s visit on International Yoga Day.
