Petition against AIADMK for diverting private buses

COIMBATORE: More than 100 private mofussil buses did not operate between Coimbatore and Pollachi, Udumalpet, Tirupur, Erode and Mettupalayam on Tuesday, affecting passengers severely. These buses had been diverted to facilitate the AIADMK political meeting at Coimbatore and Pollachi. Meanwhile, officials of Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation were deployed at Gandhipuram central bus stand and Ukkadam bus stand to regulate government buses to assigned destination.TNSTC operated additional buses to Mettupalayam, Tirupur, Pollachi, Sathyamangalam on Tuesday.
According to sources, private bus owners were asked to operate their buses for the public meetings to pick up and drop off party cadres. But some bus owners refused to do so and they were directly threatened by some functionaries of AIADMK and transport officials.
Following the instruction, most private buses operated only to service participants of the meeting. On Tuesday morning, passengers were waiting for an hour to board for Pollachi at the Ukkadam bus stand.
"Every day 35 mofussil buses are operated to Mettupalayam from the Coimbatore central bus stand. But only five buses were operated to the destination on Tuesday," said a private bus driver.
The bus owners refused to speak with the media. But sources said that AIADMK party cadres promised private bus owners funds to operate their buses for the meetings scheduled at Coimbatore and Pollachi. Other parties soon became aware of this, prompting CPM district secretary V Ramamurthy to lodge a petition against AIADMK with the district collector Archana Patnaik.
The district collector Archana Patnaik promised the CPI cadres that she would conduct an investigation into the matter and based on the findings, action would be taken.
Meanwhile, social activist and founder of Makkal Pathukappu Kazhagam Traffic Ramasamy also approached the chief electoral officer Praveen Kumar over mobile phone on Tuesday. "I informed the CEO Praveen Kumar about the violations. If he fails to take proper action against AIADMK, then I will file a case against him," said Traffic Ramasamy.