Techie death: Madras HC rebukes political parties in TN for encouraging banner culture

On Friday, party chiefs including the Chief Minister, deputy Chief Minister, DMK chief MK Stalin and AMMK chief TTV Dhinakaran asked their workers to avoid using banners and cutouts.
Subasri
Subasri

CHENNAI: A division bench of the Madras High Court has slammed political parties for encouraging the banner culture, despite various court orders against it.

"No political party has responded to our notices. We have not come across any party issuing a statement against flex boards," the bench of Justices M Sathyanarayanan and N Seshasayee observed on Friday.

The officials, who are sucking the blood of the people, are more loyal to a party than to the government, they added. 

The bombardment started when some advocates raised the death of Subasri, a techie, who was run over by a lorry in Pallikaranai after a wedding banner erected by a AIADMK functionary on the road median fell on her and caused her to fall off her two-wheeler on Thursday.

The advocates had urged the bench to suo motu treat the issue as a public interest writ petition. They said political parties and officials show scant respect to the orders of the High Court.

"The girl Subashri could have contributed to the GDP of this nation. Couldn't that politician have conducted the family marriage without flex boards?" asked the judge.

The Court ordered the payment of Rs 5 lakh to the parents of Subashri as interim compensation.

Party chiefs including CM, Deputy CM, Stalin say practice must end

On Thursday afternoon, party coordinator Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and party co-coordinator Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami in a joint statement said they were "greatly distressed when they heard news of people being affected by the actions of a eager few who are unaware of consequences or of the rules in place."

The two leaders stressed that "whether it is advertising for AIADMK programmes or an invitation for the family functions of party cadre, we lovingly ask that party cadre to avoid placing banners that come in the way of the general public." 

They said, "The party cadre should not indulge in any act that may cause hindrance to people. The placing of cutouts, flex boards (banner) for any reason, under any circumstances, should be totally avoided."

Earlier, DMK chief Stalin had taken the lead and announced that he will not attend functions if banners, flex boards and cutouts are displayed hindering traffic and causing trouble to the public. Action will be taken against partymen who violate this order, he further added.

AMMK chief TTV Dhinakaran and  PMK chief S Ramadoss also issued warning to their partymen. "Take this tragic occurrence as a warning and avoid placing banners in the future for any party programmes in this manner, in the middle of roads or even the corner of footpaths," Dhinakaran said.

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