Middle aged woman becomes a ‘showstopper’ on TN bandh day

VELLORE: Blocking traffic on a bandh day is nothing new. But a 54-year-old woman became a talk of the town in Tamil Nadu on Thursday, on a day when opposition parties led by the DMK held a dawn-to-dusk bandh to condemn the Centre’s failure to constitute a Cauvery management board.
M Deivanayagi, a DMK worker in Ambur, stopped a bus plying on the busy Chennai-Bangalore National Highway by standing alone in the middle of the road holding a party flag.
Deivanayagi, who is DMK’s Ambur Town women wing deputy organiser, said, “I came to the bus stand around 6am. Other party workers were yet to come. I was upset when I saw a bus being operated on the bandh day. So, I grabbed the party flag and walked on to the road in a bid to stop it. I was not aware that the incident was being shot on the camera,” said Deivanayagi, wife of Munusamy.
A video of Deivanayaki stopping the bus was widely circulated on social media. It became an instant hit among the party workers and also attracted the attention of DMK working president M K Stalin. Stalin’s PA called party functionaries in Ambur and informed them that the leader wanted to meet her.
“I received a phone call from our leader’s personal assistant. He asked us to bring Deivanayagi to Chennai today. Since we are under arrest for staging a rail roko, we will be going to Chennai tomorrow,” said party’s Ambur town secretary M R Arumugam.
Deivanayaki said she had never missed DMK meetings in the area in the last 36 years after she joined the party. “But I never had an opportunity to meet Stalin close. I am happy to meet him,” she said.
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