Dalit woman village head on hunger strike to protest interference in work

According to A Kiruthika Arunkumar, president of the Perugamani panchayat, the vice president of the panchayat, Manimekalai and her family members have been preventing her from discharging official duties as president of the civic body.

Kiruthika Arunkumar claimed that the vice president Manimekalai had spent a lot of money during the election to win the post of vice-president of the panchayat. Hence, she has been insisting the president to support her to commit irregularities to get the money back.

“Since I do not want to support her on such illegal activities to earn huge sums out of the funds allotted for pubic welfare schemes, she along with her family members has been insulting me and indulging in negative propaganda on social media. Manimekalai started this kind of false campaign after learning that I had lodged a complaint with the BDO against her,” she said.

The panchayat president said that the vice president was not allowing her to sit on the president’s chair and was demanding a separate cabin for her.

“As a president, I don’t want to fulfil the demands of the vice president acting against the bylaws. So, they are spreading wrong information and levelling corruption charges against me,” Kiruthika claimed.

The president alleged that the accounts and other activities in the Perugamani are transparent and she urged the DRDA officials to scrutinise the documents which would give them the real picture about her and the administration.

She also urged the DRDA to initiate legal action against the vice president and her associates.