After 83-year-old Mariyakutty’s protest over the delay in distributing welfare pensions in Adimali, Idukki, made news, another elderly woman staged a sit-in protest in the middle of the road, seeking her pension, which has been delayed for five months.
Ponnamma Rangaswami, 90, staged a protest on the Vandiperiyar-Vallakkadavu Road on Wednesday.
Ponnamma’s son, K R Mayakrishnan, told TNIE that after being injured in a mudslip at a Kallar job in 2016, he was unable to work.
“I managed to look after my mother somehow, and the monthly pension was a great relief to us,” he told me.
Mayakrishnan and Ponnamma live in a one-room bungalow built on revenue land in Karuppupalam.
“I haven’t been able to go to work for several months. In the absence of a monthly pension, we had been purchasing groceries and other necessities on credit from a nearby store. “When the situation became difficult, my mother started the protest,” he explained.
Ponnamma’s protest on the road for nearly an hour caused traffic gridlock.
However, she was returned to her home after Vandiperiyar police arrived and calmed her down.
“When news of my mother’s protest spread, we received a call from Opposition Leader VD Satheesan.” He urged Congress workers to give us a sum equal to one month’s pension. “They also gave us groceries and other necessities,” claimed Mayakrishnan, an RSS activist.
“I want the issue brought to the prime minister’s attention so that he is aware of the plight of people in the state,” said Mayakrishnan, who has a sister living in Tamil Nadu.
