AIADMK goes on defensive after cadres hijack relief ops in TN to paste pictures of CM Jayalalithaa
Chennai : The ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu came in for stinging criticism for allegedly hijacking relief materials that are being rushed in by volunteers and NGOs to help people in the flood-affected districts including Chennai. After an online backlash over its cadres forcing volunteers to surrender material aid parcels to them so that they could paste Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s photograph on it, the party opened a complaint cell to address the grievance. Twitterati was abuzz with angry tweets about AIADMK functionaries stopping lorries carrying food, clothes, medicine and other aid at the entry point of Tamil Nadu and in the affected districts and insisting that they would stick Jayalalithaa’s photo on each parcel. At some places, those who brought food to be distributed to the starving people were allegedly forced to wait for ministers to arrive.
Forest Minister M S M Anandan however told reporters that stickers with Jayalalitha’s image are stuck only on relief materials sent by the AIADMK and not on packs sent by other organisations. There were reports that in some places volunteers dumped food as it had gone stale with the ministers not arriving. In some cases, volunteers returned with the goodies as they were unwilling to allow the AIADMK to hijack their efforts. Amidst mounting criticism, the ruling party’s Information Technology Cell sought to distance the AIADMK from the controversy. Claiming that the party did not approve of forcing people to paste the Chief Minister’s photos on relief materials, the IT cell statement said, “nobody needs to oblige to such nonsensical requests.” It called upon people to inform the police or contact the party headquarters if they were confronted by unruly cadres. Besides, it urged them to take photos of such functionaries and send them to the party so that the leadership could take action against them. In another statement, the party headquarters said people could contact an IPS officer and lodge their complaints about relief materials being hijacked.
Meanwhile, an intermittent light drizzle since Saturday morning added to worries of Chennai residents, battling the worst floods in a century, and now facing a shortage of drinking water and power while anger and despair about absence of relief is growing. Meanwhile, transport links were being slowly restored, while a government statement said that 11.53 lakh people had been rescued and housed in 5,009 relief camps. Unlike some areas such as Mylapore, Adyar and Annasalai where the water level has receded and electricity supply partially restored, people in many pockets in north Chennai continued to remain cut off. “Rumours of surplus water being released are also a cause of serious worry,” Revathi Vasan, of West Mambalam, told IANS. She said power supply has not been restored in her Janakiraman Street while there is water- logging around her apartment complex and on the roads. “There is nothing much to say about our situation except that we are still living with our kind neighbours,” she said.
In the neighbouring Kodambakkam area, residents were complaining of stagnant sewage water for the past several days which the civic authorities are not attending to. “All we want is the removal of the block in the sewage line,” said a resident. Several people complained of the absence of any relief. “No official agency brought us any food or drinking water. Only the residents of neighbourhood brought us some biscuits, and drinking water,” an angry resident of MGR Nagar in Ramapuram in Thiruvallur was seen complaining to a local television channel. In Korukkupet in north Chennai, a resident complained that nobody from the government or any political party visited her locality to offer relief. In several localities, apartment owners pumped out stagnant water through hired pumps. Fish carts and two-wheelers were used to transport patients to hospitals during the past three days, said a hospital official.
