Tamil Nadu: BJP Won't Lose Support of Ramanathapuram Voters

Chennai: That the BJP would not let go the support of Ramanathapuram voters slip through their fingers became evident on Friday when the party’s State President K Annamalai took umbrage to Chief Minister M K Stalin criticizing Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his failure to ensure the welfare of the fishing community.

In a statement, Annamalai said that Modi was the one who brought solar power to Dhanuskodi, the ghost town in the southern tip of the Pamban island and asked Stalin what the DMK had been doing all these years since Dhanuskodi was ravaged by a storm in 1964.

He pointed out that the DMK had been in power in the State six times since 1967 and had several of its representatives as Union Ministers and Members of Parliament but was never concerned about rebuilding Dhanuskodi.

It was Modi who laid a road from Dhanuskodi to Rameswaram and was the first Prime Minister to take steps for the rehabilitation of the abandoned town, Annamalai said in a bid to establish that the BJP was more concerned about the welfare of the fishing community.

Questioning Stalin on the fate of his election promises to build 2 lakh houses to fisher families, increasing the compensation paid when the moratorium on fishing was imposed to Rs 8000 and establishing cold storage facilities for fishermen, Annamalai said that it was Modi who implemented schemes for the community worth Rs 2820 crore.

The quick reaction to Stalin apparently winning over the fishing community by participating in their conference in Ramanathapuram on Friday and also promising them a slew of welfare measures was an indicator to the BJP’s determination to not allow the DMK have an upper hand in Ramanathapuram Lok Sabha constituency, which, as it was rumoured earlier, could be one of the seats for Modi to contest in 2024.

It is a different matter that the DMK, too, is equally determined to not let the BJP win over the trust of people of the coastal region as it had begun its reach out programmes by organizing the booth agents’ conference at Ramanathapuram on Thursday and the Chief Minister meeting the community on Friday.

With the DMK and BJP vying to please the voters in the hitherto neglected coastal region by reconstructing places like Dhanuskodi and also helping the people through various schemes, the elections would only be a boon to the region by bringing in more development.