VELLORE: Lady running an anganwadi landed herself in a soup when she attempted to offload eggs in her house on Tuesday.
Suspecting foul play, locals objected to her unloading eggs at her home other than the anganwadi, which was not opened due to government holiday. The suspecting locals impounded the minivan which delivered the eggs at her house.
Kalaiselvai (39) in charge of the anganwadi at Kil Kothur village near Odugathur in Anaicut panchayat union asked the minivan which brought the weekly supply of eggs to deliver at her house nearby as she did not want to raise suspicions by opening the facility on a government holiday.
“Opening the anganwadi on a holiday would have led to suspicion that she was trying to misappropriate ingredients meant for cooking food for the 20-odd kids who attended the anganwadi daily,” said a local.
The village has more than 4,000 residents in addition to a higher secondary school and the anganwadi. When locals saw the minivan delivering the eggs at Kalaiselvi’s house they immediately surrounded the van and demanded to know why it was being done when the anganwadi was hardly a stone’s throw away.
The local panchayat president and a councillor both belonging to the DMK were the first to object and refused to accept Kalaiselvi’s explanation that she would take the eggs to the anganwadi on Wednesday when it started functioning.
Sources close to Kalaiselvi said, “The panchayat president then informed the Vellore panchayat union chairman Babu who in turn informed some media personnel to ‘record the happenings’.
Though Kalaiselvi remonstrated that panchayat members were making an issue out of a non-issue, the latter refused to see reason till the van crew said they would deliver the eggs at the anganwadi itself and did so. Thereafter the minivan was let to go.