COIMBATORE: Two village panchayat assistants in Mettupalayam taluk were allegedly made to stay at the Mettupalayam Railway Station throughout the night by higher officials on Friday to get tatkal tokens for election officials, who wanted to book tickets for the Nilgiris Mountain Railway train. It was alleged that they were ordered to get three tickets for poll officials appointed to monitor the election works in Mettupalayam constituency.
One of the two panchayat assistants is a person with disabilities (K Parameshwaran), who confirmed to TNIE that he, along with his colleague, spent one full night at the railway station for collecting the tokens. The 51-year-old with a locomotor disability works as an assistant at Nellithurai village panchayat. The other assistant, Dinesh, works at Odanthurai village panchayat.
As the issue came to light on Saturday, the Village Panchayat Assistants’ Association has decided to take the matter to the Election Commission (EC), seeking an inquiry and action against the officers who assigned the job to the two staff members.
“Usually, booking tatkal tickets for the NMR train is a risky affair due to huge demand among tourists. The ticket counter opens around 5.30 am, and they will issue tokens. We may get confirmed tickets only for the first five tokens, so we were made to wait at the station to get the tokens. As the booking of regular tickets is almost closed for up to April 23, many are trying to get the tatkal ticket directly from the counter. We took turns standing in queue. As the superior officer (deputy tahsildar) had ordered to get the token, we went to the railway station late Friday and stayed throughout the night, and returned only on Saturday morning. We coincidentally met some people at the station who may have spread it to the media,” Parameshwaran said. He said they got the tokens, using which the officials then booked the tickets.
“We were forced to do it for the higher officials, and it is totally outside the official work,” said Parameshwaran.
Deputy Tahsildar Shankar Lal told TNIE that he just passed the order that he got from the tahsildar. He also confirmed that the tatkal ticket tokens were for the poll officials.
When asked, Mettupalayam Tahsildar Kavitha said there is no time for anyone to do their personal work as the hands are full due to the elections. “His (Parameshwaran) disability level is low, and he can do simple work. While we are assigning other physical work, this particular staff member was given simple work,” she said.
When asked, for whom the tickets were booked, the tahsildar refused to comment.
Tamil Nadu Revenue Village Employees’ Association district president R Saravanakumar said they will meet the officers, who had “forced the employees to do this work”, on Monday. “We have asked for a time to meet the tahsildar and the revenue divisional officer in charge of the election work in the constituency,” he added.