Times of India: Coimbatore: Monday,
May 02, 2016.
False cases,
brutal attacks and harassment - that's what D Prabhakaran has suffered at the
hands of the sand mafia on the banks of the Kousika river in Tirupur. And now,
he's set himself up for another fight - against political parties in the state
in Tirupur North constituency.
Prabhakaran,
31, is contesting as an independent candidate from Tirupur in the upcoming
election and filed his nomination papers last week.
Last year,
Prabhakaran took on the sand mafia and exposed the collusion of government
officials. He believes that entering politics will help him expose corruption.
"Parties
are using money and alcohol to get people to hear their speeches and cast
votes," he said. "I am contesting purely to register my protest
against these methods. I do not want to promise things I can't do," he
said.
Though he was
accompanied by members of the Aam Aadmi party, Lok Satta party and other social
activists when he filed his nomination papers, Prabhakaran says his ideology
does not match that of any other party.
The son of a
powerloom weaver, Prabhakaran was helping his father in the family business.
"I used to file applications under the right to information (RTI) act and
help people approach officials to solve small problems related to drinking
water and sewage," he said. "It was then that I realized how deep
corruption ran," he says.
Two years
back, he started noticing people mining sand from the Kousika River, a
tributary of the Noyyal. "They were not paying the state government the
required taxes for mining sand," he said. "Some of them earned up to
40 crore in two years." Prabhakaran's fight against sand mining was not an
easy one.
With almost
all government officers turning a blind eye to his petitions and protests,
Prabhakaran had to take the issue to court. What ensued was an attack by thugs,
a police case against him and arrest. He was subsequently released.
He also took
to streets demanding the Avinashi-Athikadavu project to channel excess water
from the Bhavani river into 85 ponds to recharge groundwater. "We managed
to get a government order after weeks of protest," he said.
The activist
says he wants to do something for farmers and the powerloom industry. "I
want to create a sustainable environment where people live as one with nature
and revive and protect water bodies. I also want to root out corruption and
create a cotton market for powerloom owners to sell their cotton
directly," he said. "Currently, we depend on bigger textile mills to
pay us a reasonable rate for job work, which is unviable," he added.
.JPG)
.JPG)
