Following Dr Tan Cheng Bock’s first walkabout for the year with the Progress Singapore Party, netizens embraced his sentiment of “coming home” to West Coast GRC and welcomed him.
Elections are looming and newly minted Progress Singapore Party is pounding the ground relentlessly. Over the weekend, some 150 members of PSP were out in force in a walkabout to meet and greet residents of Teban Garden.
The sentiment of ‘coming back home’ was one that Dr Tan first expressed during his walkabout on Nov 19 at the West Coast Market.
On Dec 14, Dr Tan also said that during his walkabout: “I met many of my former constituents and I was asked if I was coming home. I never left”.
Similarly, in an interview today, Dr Tan told The Straits Times (ST), “The reception has been warm. Tell them: I’m coming home.”
Netizens and those on the ground have taken well to Dr Tan’s “coming home”.
Yesterday, during their walkabout, 22 teams covered about 50 blocks in the GRC’s Teban Gardens and Pandan Loop areas. When asked about the response from the ground, PSP member Mr Khush Chopra said “This important grassroots initiative to engage directly with the voting public door to door will help us to build the necessary support we need. It is my view that political campaigns rarely persuade people in general elections and voters make up their minds much earlier on. By this yardstick, the reception we have received at West Coast has been most encouraging.”.
Another member, Mr Ravi Philemon added, “We visited residents of over a 100 units at a block in Pandan Gardens. Some of these residents have stayed in the same vicinity for 20 – 40 years. All the residents of the block we visited welcomed us warmly. Many of the older residents knew Doc as their former MP and were very fond of him.”
On Dr Tan’s “coming home”, Mr Philemon also noted, “That is a sentiment expressed by many in that constituency. Several said the same when he visited the West Coast Hawker Centre recently”.
The incumbent’s Foo Meer Har, MP for West Coast GRC was also in the vicinity of Teban Gardens, presumably to check out the political developments on the ground. Dr Tan and Ms Foo exchanged pleasantries when they ran into each other at the walkabout.
Despite 200 members and volunteers joining Dr Tan during Sunday’s walkabout, he did not give a direct answer as to whether the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) intended to contest the area at the upcoming polls. /TISG