Kerala ASHA Health Workers’ Association (KAHWA) on Saturday met Chief Minister-designate V.D. Satheesan to remind him about his pre-poll promise of a resolution to their grievances and expressed hope that the new government would address their issues on priority.

The Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs), the grassroots-level voluntary health workers of the Health department, staged months-long protest last year to raise various demands, including an increase in their honorarium.

“The CM-designate said that he will not forget the word that he gave us, while we were on the 266-day-long strike demanding fair wages and retirement benefits. He was one of the political leaders who openly said that our demands were fair and assured us unstinted support and we look forward to good days ahead ,” KAHWA general secretary M.A Bindu said.

In many ways, post elections, the ASHAs strike is being increasingly seen as one of the symbolic moments where the Left lost its moral ground amongst the public, grassroots-level workers and even the traditional Left support base. The images of these lowly paid women health workers, including elderly women, sitting in front of the Secretariat braving the elements had been too poignant to brush away.

As the Leader of the Opposition, one of the promises that Mr. Satheesan had made, while visiting the agitating ASHAs in front of the Secretariat was that the demand of ASHAs for enhanced honorarium would be taken up in the first Cabinet, if the UDF were to come to power in the upcoming elections.

Though the CPI(M) has never formally acknowledged it, after the party’s election debacle, many in the Left camp had openly raised the criticism that the Pinarayi Vijayan government’s handling of the ASHAs strike had been insensitive and “hostile”.

The UDF had succeeded in making the ASHA agitation and the negative and ‘anti-worker” sentiments surrounding the strike a sustained theme against the Left in the election campaign.