The DMK is hoping to capitalise on the public anger over the Chennai floods.
With assembly polls in Tamil Nadu just five months away, the DMK has decided to raise the recent floods in Chennai as an election issue. The party's 92-year-old chief M Karunanidhi took to the streets today targeting Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa over the floods.
The DMK wants a probe into the release of waters from the Chembarambakkam Lake. The party alleges that the disaster was man made. It claims there was a delay in releasing waters because the chief minister's permission was being awaited despite warnings from the Met office. And later, 35,000 cusecs of water was let into the Adyar River without a warning, destroying life and property, the opposition party has alleged.
Party Treasurer and Karunanidhi's son MK Stalin said, "Instead of calling this a natural disaster we should call it an artificially caused disaster. There were irregularities and delay in release of water as they waited for the Chief Minister's consent. More than 700 people have died. Many are still missing."
The AIADMK government has denied the allegations. It claims flood warnings were given; advance discharge of waters wouldn't have helped and that the Met office had never forecast the unprecedented scale of rainfall.
The DMK is hoping to capitalise on the public anger over the Chennai floods. A day before the DMK's protest, Ms Jayalalithaa announced that cash relief would be credited to the bank accounts of 14 lakh flood affected families. The government is giving Rs 10,000 to those who lost their huts and half the amount to those whose houses were damaged.