Most representatives fail electorate in Ludhiana

Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, March 29

The 21-day lockdown ordered by the government to fight the threat posed by COVID-19 has really come as a testing time for elected representatives of the people, right from area councillors to the legislators and the MPs. A majority of them have failed to come up to the expectations of the electorate if common feeling or rather brewing resentment among the masses is any indication.

“Amid the lock down when people were confined to four walls of their houses for three weeks, the city councilors, 95 in all, should have been among the first to lend a helping hand to the people in distress, especially where supply of essential items and daily needs of the citizens were concerned,” said Jagroop Bedi, a businessman and resident of Kundanpuri, adding that in most city localities where people were being harassed due to unavailability of vegetables and ration, councillors were nowhere to be seen.

However, there have been exceptions too. City Mayor Balkar Singh said he had been moving around to oversee sanitation work being carried out by employees of the Municipal Corporation and delivery of amenities during the hour of crisis.

A few councillors of the ruling party – in ward numbers 73 (Seema Kapoor, along with her husband Sunil Kapoor), 81 (Rashi Aggarwal) and 67 (Mamta Ashu) among them, have set an example by their active involvement in home delivery of milk/milk products, vegetables, fruit and medicine in their respective wards.

In these wards, as also in some others in the city, the councillors had deployed their close supporters to prepare a list of residents with their house numbers so that essential items could be delivered on their doorstep. But most of their fellow councillors failed to emulate them, complain the affected residents.

Surinder Sharma, a shopkeeper in Haibowal said councillors with a small constituency and thousand-odd voters ought to be the first to reach out to their electorate in times of distress. But this happened only rarely and in most cases those elected to office chose to forget their promises and voters till at least for the time being.

“It is common knowledge that most councillors benefit from execution of development works in their respective wards but when it comes to lending assistance to their electorate during difficult times they are found wanting,” said another resident of Dugri, adding that the elected representatives had ditched their electorate in these difficult times.

Veggies go out of reach

Many vegetable vendors, given temporary permits by the MC to sell veggies in city localities, complained that the commission agents (arhtiyas) were exploiting the situation created by curfew and lockdown to the hilt. “The administration has issued directions that vegetable sellers would display a rate list on their push carts but there is no check on the wholesale traders who have jacked up prices of all vegetables manifold,” said a vendor

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