#WhoKilledRagu: Problems With Political Party Publicity Approaches
“#WhoKilledRagu” It was not just an accident or a slap on the face of political parties who follow a traditional way of unnecessarily showing off their strength. Is it necessary to fund publicity that costs a huge amount of money? Why don’t they spend the same money to help the mankind?
Who Was Ragu?
Ragupathy Kandasamy was residing in the USA. He was a software professional associated with a reputed IT firm. He was just 32 years old. He came back to his hometown, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, to follow the Indian tradition of meeting a prospective bride and finalizing his marriage. He was scheduled to return to the USA on Saturday night.
What Happened?
On November 26th, 2017, a Saturday, Ragupathi was driving his motorcycle towards the Singanallur bus stand. He planned to park his motorcycle there and take a bus to the Palani Murugan Temple. As he crossed the signal near Coimbatore Medical College junction, his motorcycle, unfortunately, hit the wooden arch formed on the road. He fell down from the motorcycle and another heavy vehicle passing from the same road ran over him. His head was completely crushed in the accident and he died on the spot. The wooden arch that the motorcycle hit was placed to set up the hoarding of a politician. The ruling party and AIADMK were celebrating the 100th birth anniversary of the party’s founder and former Chief Minister MG Ramachandran, who was known as MGR.
Who Killed Ragu?
Someone has written down “Who killed Ragu?” in white letters at the spot where the accident happened. Social media also started spreading the news with anger against the party’s idea to cover 20-30% of motorable road space. They trolled the political party by questing their actions with the hashtag “#WhoKilledRagu.”
Reactions
One of the officials from the traffic investigation stated that the youth wore a helmet, but due to the impact of the accident, it was thrown off of his head. The police have claimed that the wooden arch was erected without official permission. Raghu’s death has triggered a big political blame-game in Tamil Nadu. The opposition party started taking advantage of this incident, but to actually do good. A local legislator, Krishnan from the DMK, filed a petition in high court to get an order from judges to remove the hoardings in Coimbatore and also demanded compensation for Mr. Ragupathi’s family. Another person from PMK demanded to file a case against the current Chief Minister E. Palaniswami. The Tamil Nadu government has claimed that the techie died after being hit by a lorry and not because of the wooden arch that was erected by the AIADMK. A well-known actor Kamal Hasan, who is looking forward to kick-starting a political career, said, “A government that does not value the life of pedestrians can’t travel in a palanquin for long.”
Conclusion
The public has started trolling the government because of its lazy and irresponsible actions for the sake of publicity. The person who died had just started his career and had not even lived to see 40 years. The government has no right to show off their political power by creating unnecessary hazards in normal citizen’s life. In our country, political parties show off their power through rallies, meetings, and vocal events by spending lots of money. They should now understand the sensitivity of people’s lives and start spending such money to help the people who are really in need of the basic necessities like food, clothing and shelter. It is really shameful that the celebration of one person’s birth anniversary turned into an event of another person’s death.