Politics of flood heats up in TN

With just over six months to go for assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, state politics has heated up even in the Parliament in Delhi.

Minister of state for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal found himself at the wrong end of angry Tamil Nadu MPs who directed their ire against the Centre for inadequate assurances to the flood affected state of Tamil Nadu.

With the AIADMK not having a single representative in the Lok Sabha, Tamil Nadu MPS from all other parties asked the Centre to direct Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa to convene an all party meeting on floods.

They castigated Jaiswal for his 'totally unsatisfactory reply' so much so that the usually mild mannered Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs B K Handique had to assure them of a better reply after a pre-scheduled discussion on WTO got over. 

Jaiswal meanwhile was asked by the MPs for 'specific assurances' on flood relief efforts. When Jaiswal said that the Centre could only advise the state government on how to conduct flood relief, Krishnaswamy, an MP from the DMK erupted angrily at the minister.

'In the last four years the chief minister of Tamil Nadu has not held a single meeting with either the MPs or the MLAs, we want the government to convey the Centre's anguish at this instead of this disappointing reply,' he said.

Outside the House, Tamil Nadu MPs said that the Jayalaithaa government's ability to walk away with all the credit of handling first the Tsunami and now the unprecedented floods in the state would be paid for by electoral reverses.

"Our government is there in the Centre but in the state we are losing ground," said a DMK MP.

If the DMK appeared to be angry with its Central ally, the AIADMK, with its presence only in the Upper house made it a point to distance itself from the opposition BJP.

When the NDA staged a walkout on the Volcker issue this morning, the AIADMK members stayed put making it very clear that they would be on their own during the Tamil Nadu assembly elections.