KATTAPPANA/KOCHI: Jayalalithaa provides freebies to the ‘aam aadmi’ of Tamil Nadu for voting her to power, and they make some quick money out of them. Agents buy the gifts cheap from the voters and sell them for a profit in the border towns of Kattappana, Munnar and Kumili in Kerala. Amma has already started distributing the gadgets which include laptops, washing machines, stoves and grinders and agents have begun taking orders for the goods.Puchappan, a Tamil migrant, who provides milk from Tamil Nadu to Kumili, had been supplying electronic gadgets from Tamil Nadu for the past five years. “Amma has begun to distribute gifts like small computers (laptops), mixer, grinder and cow recently. Many agents are getting orders from Kattappana, Munnar and Kumili for these goods. We will travel to Tamil Nadu and purchase the goods and sell them according to the orders we receive,” Puchappan said. The gifts and freebies flowing to Kerala are not anything new. In the 2006 elections when the DMK led by Karunanidhi distributed portable television sets, a good number of them reached Kerala and were great hits in border areas. These sets were sold as the people in Tamil Nadu found them useless owing to long power cuts. “The TV sets are still available and people are selling them at a low cost. A portable TV only costs around `1,200 and grinder around `3,000 but there is no assurance on the quality. Mostly, the cable TV operators and hostellers give orders for the TV sets. As far as mini- computers are concerned, the computer centres and schools give the order.We buy a computer for ` 10,000 and hopefully we will get around `12,000 to `14,000 for it here,” Puchappan said. He knows nothing about the mini-computer and will keep one for his son who has passed Plus-Two for assisting in the business.According to him, there are many others like him who do similar business. The agents are those who had migrated from Tamil Nadu for the plantation works. Most of these migrant Tamils have dual voter identity cards and ration cards of both the states. Puchappan cast his vote in Tamil Nadu during the Assembly election. He feels his vote is valuable in Tamil Nadu as gifts and money are given in return.
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