Councillors whisked away to an undisclosed destination

TIRUNELVELI

Like the shepherd protecting his herd in the pen from the blood-thirsty carnivores pouncing suddenly from the jungle, 35 newly-elected councillors of the ruling DMK were whisked away to an undisclosed destination in Kerala minutes after they took the oath on Wednesday in a bid to ‘protect’ them from those who can ‘poach’ them for getting the Mayor or Deputy Mayor post of the urban civic body.

 Ever since they got elected, these 35 of the 44 DMK councillors are being protected for reasons best known to everyone – to avert ‘horse-trading’ for getting the mayor or the deputy mayor posts by a few within the party who enjoy money, muscle and community power. After getting elected as councillors on February 22 after the end of the counting of votes, these members of Tirunelveli Corporation council were taken to Kanniyakumari minutes after they received their ‘winner’s certificate’ from the Returning Officer at the Government College of Engineering in Palayamkottai where the votes polled in the Corporation wards were counted.

 After spending the night in a luxury hotel in Kanniyakumari, they were taken to a resort in Poovar near Thiruvananthapuram from where they returned to Palayamkottai only a few hours before they were administered the oath by the Corporation Commissioner B. Vishnu Chandran.

 On reaching a hotel on the South Bypass Road on Wednesday morning, the councilors who were taken on a pleasure trip to Kerala, left for the Corporation in five air-conditioned vans, which were escorted by as many cars. Once the vans reached the Corporation premises for the oath taking ceremony, those who were escorting the vans in cars, got down with a paper carrying the names of the councilors travelling in each van.

 After allowing the councillors to go one by one to the council hall for the ceremony, the escorts and the vans were tensely waiting for their ‘esteemed guests’. Once the ceremony was over, the councillors, who were brought to the council hall in the vans from the hotel, were stuffed in the air-conditioned vehicles again even as the police were protecting them.

 Only after the escorts cross-checked the names of the councilors, who boarded the vans, the vehicles left the Corporation premises for an undisclosed destination in the Kollam district of Kerala.