Pre-poll promises haunt councillors amid protests

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, April 19

Tall promises that candidates had offered to woo voters prior to the municipal elections have now returned to haunt elected councillors in Kotkapura, Faridkot and Jaitu towns of the district.

Residents of some wards in Kotkapura and Jaitu staged protests and demanded that the elected councillors solve the problems of sewerage water spilling out on streets and repair dilapidated roads in their wards.

They demanded that the councillors fulfill the promises they had made.

However, as the cash-strapped and politically-disarrayed municipal committees are unable to meet these demands, some of the elected councillors have started spending from their own pocket to pacify their voters. In Jaitu, after residents blocked a road to stage a dharna demanding an end to the problem of overflowing sewerage water, the newly elected vice-president of the municipal council, Pardeep Singla, rushed to the area and got the blockage of some drains cleared.

In Faridkot, even after over a month, 25 newly elected councillors are yet to elect their president due to a political tug of war.

To pacify voters, the newly elected councillor of ward no. 10 spent over Rs 10 lakh on a tractor-trailer, a fogging machine to control mosquitoes, a drinking water supply tank and on a cleanliness drive of her ward.

This first-time councillor, Ramandeep Kaur Gill, is a BDS (IIIrd year) student. She said in the absence of the MC president and administrator, all works in the committee are “struck in a political logjam”.

Protesters in Kotkapura said many politicians failed to deliver their campaign promises once they assumed power. They could say anything that voters want to hear to get elected, the protesters said.

A large number of residents of Kotkapura had held a protest in Kotkapura, demanding the repair of the Pheruman Chowk-Jaurian Chakkian road.