PALAKKAD: Being a border district, Palakkad has a good sprinkling of Tamil speaking population. Naturally, mainstream political parties whether it is the CPM, the Congress or the BJP, they have printed posters and banners in Tamil and also distributed notices printed in Tamil listing the development activities implemented in the constituency.
Even though the people of the eastern parts of the district who depend on paddy cultivation are always at loggerheads with their Tamil Nadu counterparts over the sharing of the water under the inter-State Parambikulam- Aliyar river water sharing agreement. But they share the same customs and culture of the people of Tamil Nadu.
The Tamil cinemas run to full houses here. The posters and banners of the candidates in the Palakkad and the adjacent Alathur Lok Sabha constituencies have been printed in Tamil. The BJP has also printed posters and issued notices seeking votes on behalf of its candidate C K Padmanabhan in Attappadi stating that it had prevented the construction of a weir at Mukkali across the Bhavani river so that the people of Attapadi are not denied water in summer.
The Tamil posters and wall writings are widely seen in the Kozhinjampara, Govindapuram , Meenakshipuram, Moolathara and Velanthavalam areas in the Alathur Lok Sabha constituency and in Walayar, Aanakatty, Sholayur and Kanjikode areas in the Palakkad Lok Sabha constituency.
In Walayar, it is an interesting sight to see posters in Tamil of the candidates in the Palakkad Lok Sabha constituency on one side of the Walayar river and that of the Coimbatore Lok Sabha constituency on the other side.
Similarly, the borders of the panchayats of Gopalapuram, Meenakshipuram and Govindapuram share a common border with the Pollachi Lok Sabha constituency. Here, on either side of the Moolathara road in Govindapuram and Eruthenpathy, you can see the posters and banners of candidates of the Alathur and Pollachi Lok Sabha constituencies divided apart only by the width of a road.
It may be recalled that the Public Relations Department had also brought out a 24 page booklet in Tamil to mark the first year of office of the LDF Government titled ‘Puthenunnarvin oru Varsham’ with a smiling Chief Minister Achuthanandan on its cover and photographs of all the ministers in the cabinet in its inner pages listing the development and welfare measures taken by the LDF Government. These booklets were distributed to the people through the grama panchayats in the Tamil speaking areas.
“The entire Chittur taluk and the Palakkad Municipality were declared linguistic minority areas way back in 1956, where more than 15 per cent of the population speak Tamil. But our plea for providing the electoral rolls in Tamil in these areas has not been accepted by the Government.
