Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) president G.K. Vasan, who had launched ‘Towards the people’ programme, which is to visit people on their doorsteps in the run-up to the Assembly elections, said that he had no belief in mobilising crowd in a ‘show of strength’ and cheat the people.
The TMC leader, who paid a day’s visit to the island on Tuesday, took the locals by pleasant surprise as he sat along with them on the floor and listened to their grievances, sending a strong message that he was keen on redressing their problems.
Stating that even smaller parties mobilised crowd and organised rallies to showcase their ‘strength’ ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections, he said that the TMC too had proved its mettle when it organised a rally in Tiruchi in November last but no more interested in organising such rallies.
“We don’t want to mobilise people and cheat them. Instead, we will visit them on their doorsteps, listen to their grievances and try our best to redress them,” Mr. Vasan said, addressing a meeting at Uchipuli near here on Tuesday evening.
The TMC leader sat on the dais with the fisherfolk on reaching Thangachimadam and interacted with them after asking the party office-bearers to remove all the chairs.
The men and women, probably for the first time, had the rare opportunity of closely interacting with a party leader.
Later, addressing the gathering, he said he was genuinely concerned about the problems faced by the fishing community.
“You risk your lives every time when you set out for fishing and politicians remained indifferent to your plight,” he said, and promised to do his best to redress their grievances.
“I came here to give a political speech touching on the burning prohibition issue, but after seeing your saddened faces I wanted to become one among you,” he said.