Tamil flavour in Jalandhar municipal polls
Pallani Appan Swami, 47, a former councillor from ward number 17, is the candidate from ward number 47 this time.
A Congress candidate of Tamil origin is in the fray for the municipal corporation (MC) polls here on the support of his community residing in the Madrasi Mohalla near the railway station here.
Pallani Appan Swami, 47, a former councillor from ward number 17, is candidate from ward number 47 this time. The seat is reserved for backward classes (BC). He has installed big hoardings in Tamil urging people to support him for polls, scheduled to be held on December 17.
Appan is a native of Tamil Nadu, but he has enough support of the people residing in the Madrasi Mohalla, dominated by the members of the community.
This ward has a total of 12,000 voters out of which 1,800 are from Tamil Nadu and over 2,000 from Bihar and UP. These people have been residents here for decades.
“I won the last MC elections by a margin of 200 votes as my people voted for me, but now members of other communities from Bihar, UP and even Punjabis have liked my work and calling him to their houses for tea during campaigning,” Appan told the HT.
Appan said his parents came to the city with some of their relatives around five decades ago. Now Jalandhar is my permanent home, he said.
Watching a Tamil movie on the TV at his home, Appan says, “They are living here, but never miss to watch Tamil news and Tamil shows that help them stay abreast with developments in our native place.”
“With a Mariamma temple, signboards in Tamil and residents speaking in Tamil and even houses built in the South Indian style here give us a feeling of living in Chennai,” Appan’s wife Mukkar said.
Pallani, who is working as a junk dealer, is the third Tamil councillor from the area and has the support of Jalandhar Central MLA Rajinder Beri.
Earlier, Kuppu Swami and Ganga Devi had also represented the area for the Congress.
“His origin is not an issue for us at all. Being an MC last time, he worked for the people and stood by them in the hour of need. The Madrasi community people are living here with us for years now,” said Harpal Mintu, a resident of the same ward.
Telling about Tamil posters, he said that about six posters have been installed in their language across the ward as some elderly are still not aware of Hindi or Punjabi language.