Tamil Nadu Assembly polls: Residents to boycott voting in protest over delay in building service lanes

The Trichy-Palpannai-Thuvakudi Service Road Meetpu Kootamaippu has said that residents living in colonies along the city stretch of Tiruchi-Thanjavur National Highway would boycott the Assembly election as a mark of protest over the “continued neglect” of their demand for building service lanes between Palpannai and Thavakudi along the Highway.

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In a communication sent to the district Election Officer and Collector V. Saravanan, also released to the media, the federation’s president S. Subramanian and general secretary K. Rajendran said they have taken the decision in consultation with other residents welfare associations.

“The service roads should have been built along with the [four-laning of] Tiruchi-Thanjavur National Highway in 2006-09 as per the original plan. But they were not built due to the interference of certain selfish traders and due to this innumerable accidents and deaths continue to occur on the stretch,” the federation said.

“Over the past 16 years, political parties have been holding out mere promises on building service lanes during elections but neglect the issue after coming to power, thereby doing injustice to the people,” the federation charged.

Hence, they have been forced to resort to the “negative action,” although they wanted to ensure cent per cent polling in elections, the federation regretted.

Down the years, residents federation have resorted to a series of protests on the issue. The issue had gained some political traction after a group of CPI cadre went on a fast. VCK president Thol. Thirumavalavan had expressed solidarity with the protesting CPI cadre.

Following this, the district administration had announced that the land acquisition process for the project would be completed soon and work on forming the service roads would be taken up.