PALAKKAD/THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Congress state president K Sudhakaran has said, in a Facebook post, that the salutations of “sir” and “madam” will be avoided for official transactions in all Congress-ruled local bodies.
Sudhakaran said that Mathur panchayat in Palakkad district has become the first local body in the state to ban the use of these words. The common man who arrives at the panchayat should call the officials by their names or address them as “chetta” or “chechi” (brother or sister), he said.
Sudhakaran said those working in government offices were rendering a service to the people. Therefore, the Congress has decided to implement the decision to avoid the salutations “sir” and “madam” in all local bodies where the party is in power.
He said such addresses were remnants of the Colonial Raj and it was in that context that the UDF-ruled Mathur panchayat decided to do away with these words, which could be termed a “revolutionary” decision. He also lauded the president of the panchayat, Pravitha Muralidharan, and vice-president, P R Prasad, and other committee members for having taken the decision.
The local bodies under them will also avoid the terms “apekshikunnu” and “abhyarthikunnu” and instead use the words “thalparyapedunnu” or “avakasham unnayikunnu”. This step of the Mathur panchayat is a model to the whole country at a time when the central and state governments are trampling upon the democratic rights of the public and the police force was questioning the self-respect of the people,” Sudhakaran said.
The Congress state president said the party will exert pressure to implement these decisions in the whole state once they are implemented in the Congress-ruled local bodies. District presidents have been directed to implement the same, he said.