Villagers threaten to boycott local body polls over delimitation

The Vellore, Ranipet and Tirupattur Collectors A Shanmuga Sundaram, S Divyadarshiini and MP Sivan Arul respectively met at the Vellore Collector’s office to sort out delimitation of panchayat unions in the three districts.

During the meeting, the residents of the three villages charged that despite informing officials at the district delimitation meet that they wanted their areas to be attached to Ranipet district before the new districts were created, the three villages were wantonly attached to the Vellore district.

“We sought attachment to Sholingur PU as the district headquarter Ranipet is only 14 km from our villages whereas we have to travel more than 40 km to reach Vellore under which Katpadi PU falls,” they said. They demanded that the government act for the welfare of the people and not give in to the wiles of politicians who had their own personal axes to grind.

When Ranipet Collector Divadarshini intervened and said that this was not a district delimitation meet, more than 10 residents of the three villages were immediately on their feet and threatened to boycott all government-related matters, if the latter, despite their opposition, attached them to Katpadi PU.