Cyclone Vardah halts political activities for 24 hours

Chennai: At a time when both the ruling AIADMK and opposition DMK are bracing up for major changes in the leadership, the storm Vardah put a brake on political activities to shift focus on relief measures.

Within the ruling AIADMK party, the leaders are gearing up to make former Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa’s close aide V.K. Sasikala as the new general secretary, besides giving key posts to some senior leaders in the party.  Jaya TV, which unabashedly supports the ruling party as it is owned by the party’s big functionaries, started showing visuals of ministers and other leaders expressing their vocal support to Sasikala’s candidature.

The AIADMK leaders and ministers fell silent on the leadership issue on Monday as the government turned its focus on cyclone precautions and gearing up for relief activities. The ministers, including CM O. Panneerselvam and Revenue minister R.B. Udhayakumar were busy putting out a series of statements outlining government initiatives to protect the people, especially those living in low-lying areas.

The DMK, which announced that its general council meeting would be on December 20, has commenced the negotiations for elevation of the party treasurer to the position of working president, but it was starved of time for orchestration of the major move thanks to the storm. Stalin himself issued a statement on Monday asking the people to follow the precautions given by the government to safeguard themselves from the fury of the cyclone.

Stalin said since strong winds were blowing along with heavy rain, people’s first priority should be safety. He asked the public to stay in their houses and offices, besides appealing to them not to go out during the storm. He also cited the government instructions and asked the people to follow them for their safety.
The opposition parties are preparing to assess the damage caused by the storm and come out with their demands to look at specific issues that need their attention.  Since the DMK has a large number of MLAs from Chennai, Kanchipuram and Tiruvallur, districts which took the most severe beating, the party will take up relief work there in a big way.

Some of the MLAs have already started visiting their constituencies and almost all the DMK MLAs belonging to the affected areas will soon descend on their constituencies, inspect the damage and find out what people are demanding. Besides, making appeals to the government, the party itself will take up relief works and provide relief materials.

Though the other opposition parties have no representation, they too are expected to take up the problems of the people after the cyclone and resort to relief work. During the floods in December last year, all the opposition party leaders were on the ground to help with relief work and similar scenes could be witnessed soon.  With just a week to go for the general council meeting, the DMK functionaries are expected to be busy both in relief activities and meeting preparations.