Madurai households are in a fix. Lured by incentives to attend election campaigns, domestic help are apparently taking leave from work and heading to the hustings.
R. Rajalakshmi, a private sector employee here, complains about having to do all the household chores since the election campaigns. Frowning, she says: “My domestic help has begun to bunk work for an unusual number of days. She has taken off five days in the last two weeks.”
“I know pretty well,” Rajalakshmi goes on to say, “that her husband is a member of a political party and he takes her and their children along to every other public meeting because headcount matters in such meetings and they get paid for that. They are also provided with free food, transportation and other facilities. She herself has told me this many times in the past.”
Though she is okay with the domestic help taking well-deserved holidays, these frequent absences are proving to be disruptive, she says.
Others sharing her sentiment were also initially puzzled when their domestic help did not turn up for work for several days.
But, it is not only the domestic help. Other labourers are also in short supply this election season, C. Murugan, a civil contractor here, says that his entire team of construction labourers was jobless until he bagged as many as four residential house projects, all around the same time, about two months ago.
“Now, I am in need of more labourers to complete the projects on time. But they are not available on demand because of their preoccupation with election meetings. Things are going to be tough ahead too since the annual Chithirai festival, Madurai’s mega event, has coincided with the election campaign,” he fears.
