PALAKKAD:The upcoming elections to the local bodies have resulted in all political parties undertaking exercises to woo voters.
Apart from speeding up the works at the ward level which involve sundry works like cleaning up drains in the wake of the monsoon and removing grass and shrubs on either side of the roads, political outfits went one step further and set up help desks in the verandah of the Palakkad Municipality.
The first to put up a help desk was the BJP, after which other political parties like the Muslim League, Congress and the CPM followed suit.
Palakkad municipality chairman P V Rajesh said political parties are not allowed to put up any sort of ‘help desks’ within the Municipal compound as per the Government order. Therefore, the Municipal authorities asked all parties to dismantle the help desk.
He said the steering committee of the Municipal council met here and decided that the Municipality should open its own help desk, which started functioning on Friday and a person to help the public was posted. Earlier, there was a reception counter which was closed down. Meanwhile, BJP district president B Krishnakumar said the party’s help desk would continue to function till a full fledged felicitation centre of the Municipality was opened. He said that the Government order only barred ‘outsiders’ from functioning within the compound.
However, the district leadership of the BJP has decided that two of the 14 BJP councillors would be seated at the help desk every day on a rotation basis till a full fledged desk of the Municipality was opened.