Alagiri reinstates Cong office-bearers removed by Vellore district chief

Few days ago, Vellore district Congress president J Jothi had announced the removal of Pernambut town Congress committee president G Suresh Kumar, Pernambut north panchayat union president GKM Jalapathy and PCC members J Krishnaveni and R Devikarani.

In their place, Jothi had appointed A Afroz Ahamed as Pernambut town committee president, N Jayakumar as north panchayat union president and KR Kannan, N Vedamanimaran, M Baskar as PCC members and N Ananthasayanam, RG Velusamy and PS Salim Basha as district vice-presidents.

The affected members, led by Suresh Kumar, took up the matter with TNCC president KS Alagiri, who conducted an enquiry and a couple of days later announced that the district heads had no powers to remove or appoint new members to party posts without the approval of the TNCC president. Threatening action if they continued, he added in the announcement that the removed office-bearers would continue in their respective party posts.

But, what was left unsaid in both the removal and reinstatement announcements was the reason for district president Jothi’s action. Enquiries revealed that it boiled down to the long-pending and contentious Pernambut bus stand issue. Some locals formed a cartel and attempted to put pressure on the district administration to choose a spot in the neighbouring Sathgar village panchayat, which was resisted by the town Congress committee.

As Suresh Kumar told DT Next, “the move would have resulted in cash-strapped Pernambut municipality losing revenue as bus stand revenue would have gone to Sathgar panchayat.” Though Suresh Kumar expressed willingness to provide two acres of land free for the venture, the move fell through when cartel members wanted him to sell his land to the government and hand over the money to them. “It is this cartel which moved the district Congress committee to oust us so that there would be no opposition to their moves,” Krishnaveni said.