CHENNAI: Public walls at Greenways Road in MRC Nagar which were painted by a local NGO and residents a month ago were ruined on Tuesday night when posters of late leader J Jayalalithaa were splattered on top of these paintings by political parties on the eve of her second death anniversary on Wednesday.
Close to 30 posters were stuck along the walls of a Metro Water pumping station at Greenways Road. Only in October, these walls were painted by 250 plus volunteers of Environmentalist Foundation of India (EFI) and local residents by spending over a period of three weeks.
Residents and locals woke up to see their hard work lying in shambles underneath a dozen political posters on Wednesday morning. “I saw school and college students paint this stretch meticulously for three hours on a weekend. The otherwise empty walls bore messages about the need for water conservation. It is very disheartening to see this spoilt overnight,” said K Uma Maheshwari, a resident of RA Puram.
Volunteers who pass through this stretch regularly found the paintings intact till Tuesday morning. But by Wednesday night when they went to the spot to check again, two sets of posters were stuck on one another on top of the paintings. Aravindh Krishnan along with five other volunteers and founder of EFI, Arun Krishnamurthy spent two hours to take down the posters.
“We found posters of Ambedhkar stuck on of Jayalalitha’s posters. These were stuck on Wednesday night for his death anniversary. We ended up removing two sets of posters. The paint on the walls also peeled away when we removed these,” said Aravindh, project coordinator at EFI.
Ironically, Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar had also taken part in painting on this stretch at Greenways Road along with residents and volunteers.
Volunteers said something similar happened in 2017 when newly painted walls were ruined by political posters stuck on them. “Along with this wall, we had painted walls of the dump yard at Pallikaranai and walls outside Metro Water’s office in Tiruvattiyur. We always get permission from the corporation and Metro Water before taking up any activity. But these posters are stuck illegally ruining public walls,” added Aravindh.