The days leading up to the Attukal Pongala witnessed heated political exchanges over the arrangements made by the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation for the festival. One of the main problems in recent days has been the interruption of water supplies to Manacaud and the surrounding areas. Mayor VVRajesh wrote to Water Resources Minister Roshy Augustine on Monday that he identified supply-related issues this year compared to previous years. “We suspect that there is a deliberate error behind the non-availability of drinking water in many parts of the city for the last 10 days. It has been found that there were failures in the valve controls at Vellayambalam Filter House. A high-level inquiry should be conducted in the last few days regarding the valve controls,” he said in the letter. Assuring that water supply will not be interrupted during Pongal, Mr. Augustine told the media that the Left Democratic Front (LDF) did not want to politicize the festival. “The water authority and the corporation are working well together to solve the problem. Apart from the special units, there is a control room under each section office,” he said. SPDeepak, Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader in the corporation, told The Hindu that the corporation cannot shirk its responsibility to ensure water supply. All delivery issues were handled by KWA. “The BJP leadership in the Corporation is trying to use the problems of water supply in individual households to divert attention from its malfunctions. Unlike previous years, the Corporation has not been able to complete the tarring work on all the roads. Devotees who gathered around the Attukal Bhagavathy Temple on Monday were unhappy about the inundation of water at the temple,” said Mr. Deepak. Unseasonal rains that lashed the capital on Sunday night turned the ground near the temple, which used to be filled with hundreds of bonfires, into a muddy mess, forcing devotees to seek ideal spots further away from the temple. The mayor’s plan to reuse bricks used for Pongal to build houses for beneficiaries under various housing schemes has also drawn criticism from the Left. Online cliques of the CPI(M) pointed out that when the LDF-led administration announced similar plans in previous years, people associated with the BJP ran a false campaign against it, urging devotees to break the bricks used. Regarding post-Pongal waste management, Mr. Rajesh said 3,000 sanitation workers would be deployed across the city for post-Pongal cleanup. Roughly 200 dump trucks will be deployed to remove the waste, which will be taken to various landfills.
Published – 02 March 2026 20:44 IST
