Melvisharam residents give up 15-year boycott

VELLORE: Residents of the municipal wards of 3,4,5 and 6 attached to Melvisharam Municipality, who have been boycotting elections since 1996, with a demand that these four wards be declared as a separate village panchayat, appear to have mellowed down now. They have come out of the agitation mode and cast their votes after a long gap of 15 years. The residents have fielded as many as 17 candidates in these elections.The agitation dates back to 1996, when four councillors elected from these wards had resigned from their posts demanding among other things, carving out the four wards from the municipality and converting the same into a village panchayat. They also wanted the village to be renamed as ‘Rasathupuram’ as found in the government records. The residents unitedly went on to boycott the local body polls in 2001, but voted in the Assembly and Parliament elections. When a writ petition filed by them in the Madras High Court was dismissed, Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy filed a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court in support of the village status demand.The agitators claimed that in 2009, the SC had given a direction to the State Government to submit all details about the issue to the Tamil Nadu Governor, who later ordered that the four wards be converted into a village. Encouraged by the development, the residents of these wards decided to take part in the local body elections. Accordingly, six persons filed their papers in Ward 4, six in Ward 5 and five in Ward 6. Interestingly, three from these wards have filed their nominations for the Melvisharam municipal chairman post also.A cross-section of the residents of these wards, however, pointed out that the contestants had assured them that they would continue with their agitation by tendering their resignations if they encountered any issue with the village status process.