Ryots to boycott parties backing 8-lane corridor

The highway from Chennai passes through Kancheepuram, Tiruvannamalai, Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri to reach Salem. A major portion of the highway runs through Tiruvannamalai district. Opposition to the project died down following the Chennai High Court issuing a stay against measuring land for the project.

Till the stay was issued, revenue officials anyway entered farms with police help and after measuring the land put up boundary stones. This led to continuous agitation in which some slit their wrists, jumped into wells while some even consumed poison.

What irked officials was that there were no takers for the market value offered for the land provided as farmers felt that money could never compensate for the loss of livelihood which they would face once lands were taken away. The posters, sources revealed followed a recent government announcement that additional land was needed for the project. The posters put up by Tiruvannamalai farmers had 6 mobile phone numbers incase additional information was needed.

“No political party has opposed the project and they supported us initially only for votes,” said a Kalasapakkam farmer preferring anonymity. “If parties had voiced their opposition vehemently, then the government would not have announced the need for additional land,” he added.

With Parliamentary elections expected soon, the poster has put parties in a fix as farmers are in no mood to relent on their demand. Stating that political parties were bent on cheating them, farmers with one voice said they would boycott any party which supported the project which was of no use to the locality in addition to ending agriculture in the area once and for all.