Chandy’s ‘Mass Contact Programme’ pulls crowds
trivandrum — Unfazed by the grim political challenges awaiting the Congress-led UDF in the Lok Sabha polls, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has been criss-crossing the state with his ‘Mass Contact Programme’ by directly engaging with people, mostly the less privileged, and pulling crowds.
The second phase of the unique outreach campaign, which won the UN award for public service in July, has already seen Chandy meeting hundreds in four districts and the exercise is to be completed by the year-end covering the remaining 10 districts.
After a brief hospitalisation for injuries he suffered in the stonepelting allegedly by LDF workers during a visit to politically-vola- tile Kannur recently, 70-year-old Chandy resumed the Jana Samparka Paripadi at Malappuram and Pathanamthitta districts this month, spending over 20 hours at a stretch in each place.
The LDF opposition, however, terms the programme as a “populist stunt” at the best and a “mere political gimmick” at the worst.
LDF leaders have argued that this kind of an exercise would only erode the efficacy of the grass-root level administration and local bodies and the whole personality-centred exercise was conceived as a short cut to deflect public attention from the failures of the” scamtainted government” and the infighting in the Congress in the state. —