A day after the DMK drew criticism from residents and commuters for damaging footpaths for hoisting party flags, the partymen repaired pavements in a few areas.
DMK MLA J. Anbazhagan posted pictures of his party cadre repairing the footpaths near the Pachaiyappa’s College Metro Rail station. He tweeted: “Our team has successfully repaired the damage in some areas & making sure no damage has been left without repaired. We regret the inconvenience caused, I also made sure contractor will not repeat it again. Thanks.”
They plugged the holes in the footpath with concrete. While some appreciated the effort to repair it immediately, a few pointed out that they should have replaced the granite and not just dumped concrete in the holes.
On Saturday evening, for a meeting in Anna Nagar in which DMK working president M.K. Stalin participated, DMK partymen dug holes on the footpaths in Anna Nagar and on Poonamallee High Road.
Twitter campaign
In the light of this incident, Arappor Iyakkam started a campaign #OurPlatformOurRight in Twitter and garnered response from various residents. They also changed their handle name Our Platform Our Right to highlight this issue.
Jayaram Venkatesan of Arappor Iyakkam said, “For the last few years, we have been fighting against parties erecting banners and ruining footpaths in the city. While one issue is that they damage public property, the other is they do it blatantly even though it is illegal.” After they started this hashtag, some began posting pictures of other areas where footpaths had been damaged.