People's anger puts AIADMK on sticky wicket

Aruppukkottai: An alleged failure to honour an election promise to provide home appliances worth Rs 3,000 and his reported inaccessibility in the last five years may lead to sitting MLA and AIADMK candidate ‘Vaigai’ Chelvan losing to old-timer KKSSR Ramachandran, the DMK candidate, in Aruppukkottai constituency in the May 16 Assembly elections.

Though KKSSR lost to Vaigai Chelvan in the 2011 election, the electorate is seemingly disillusioned over the MLA, who gave them ‘coupons’ with party symbol printed on one side and pictures of MGR and AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalithaa on the other during the campaign, telling them that he would identify four shops from where they could collect gifts worth Rs 3,000 each.

However, after the election when the people approached Chelvan at the MLA office in Aruppukkottai town and asked him about the shops where they could collect the gifts, his supporters are reported to have literarily chased them away.

The AIADMK workers now claim that the coupons were printed by DMK functionaries and given to the voters.

But most of the angry voters still preserve the ‘coupon’ and also harbour anger as they feel that they have been taken for a ride. “When we approached the MLA with coupons, he questioned us stating you didn’t vote for me. You have voted only for Amma, so don’t come to me for gifts,” recalled Selvaraj from Palavanatham village.

When Vaigai Chelvan visited Palavanatham village asking for votes last Sunday, people prevented him from entering the village. “When the MLA and his supporters tried to pacify us, we recalled the same answer he gave to us at his office when we approached him with the coupon and warned him to leave the place,” said some women from the village.

He also faced similar protests in other places. On Friday evening, a youth in Aruppukkottai town confronted Vaigai Chelvan with a ‘coupon’. Immediately his supporters manhandled him, said a senior AIADMK functionary on the request of anonymity.

Moreover, many people complain about his inaccessibility. “Though Vaigai Chelvan was an outsider, we voted for him believing that he would bring development to the constituency, but he never visited us even once in the last five years,” said a group of people from Meenakshipuram village.

Pointing to the battered roads in the village, the people complained that they have repeatedly appealed to him to improve the sanitation and drinking water facilities in the village, but only in vain.

“Even when we invited the MLA for the village temple festival, he put a condition stating he will attend it only if members from other political parties keep way from it,” said the villagers, adding that they requested him not to visit them.

He also earned a bad name from the AIADMK party functionaries in the villages. “I worked very hard for his victory in the last election, but few months after the election when I approached him to get a letter to avail the CM health insurance scheme for my daughter, the MLA insulted me stating — ‘why do you approach me’,” said a senior AIADMK functionary from Amananatham village.

Many villagers regretted having defeated former DMK minister KKSSR Ramachandran, who had won six times from Sattur constituency, parts of which now make Aruppukkottai constituency after delimitation. Ramachandran, the president of the MGR Fans club of composite Ramanathapuram district (Ramanathapuram, Sivaganga and Virudhunagar), had joined the AIADMK when MGR launched the party in 1971 and had worked for MGR’s victory in the then Aruppukkottai constituency.

He was first elected to the Assembly from Sattur constituency in the 1977 elections. After he was sidelined in the AIADMK, KKSSR joined the DMK.

“KKSSR will attend all the marriage functions and death ceremonies. Moreover, if he had to cross through our village, he will stop his vehicle and talk to us for few minutes,” said the people from Kuchuppari village.

This apart, if anybody approached him for help, he would listen to their grievance and take steps to solve it, said the people adding he would remember the people by their names. The economic crisis, which left many people unemployed and price rise of essential commodities is also favouring DMK candidate in this constituency. Aruppukkottai is a dry region where farmers depend on rain for the cultivation.

“For six months in a year, we need to depend on employment outside agriculture for our livelihood. For the last two years, we are unable to get proper employment,” said Ravindaran, a carpenter.