As the main Opposition party, the AIADMK has the primary responsibility to expose the DMK government’s failures, especially when Chennai and many districts in Tamil Nadu are yet to come out of the problems caused by the rain, senior party leader and former Revenue and Disaster Management Minister R.B. Udayakumar has said.
His comments were in an apparent reference to another senior leader A. Anwhar Raajhaa’s remarks in an interview to The Hindu. The AIADMK leadership, he said, had directed the party functionaries to help the needy. It was not the right time to discuss the intra-party affairs, especially in the media, and the functionaries had the prime responsibility to talk out the woes of the common man in one voice, he said.
Mr. Udayakumar told The Hindu on Monday that the problems stemming from the rain had not been handled effectively by the government. Though Chief Minister M.K. Stalin and some of the Ministers had been visiting the affected areas, people’s sufferings had not been mitigated. The DMK government, he said, should again bring in the Union Government’s inter-ministerial team to inspect the entire Cauvery delta region because the crop damage was very severe.
Everyone who followed the ideals of MGR and Jayalalithaa had the right to protect the AIADMK. Any suggestion, complaint or criticism was welcome. The party had a forum for discussions, and it would be ideal to discuss all issues there, be it of V.K. Sasikala’s readmission or of the alliance with the BJP, he said.
