Better late than never, Vellore AIADMK sends relief to Chennai
“The relief materials would be sent to Opposition leader Edappadi K Palaniswami’s house in Chennai from where party men would direct the loads to areas which needed it the most.”
Relief materials collected by the AIADMK in Vellore
VELLORE: The Vellore urban district AIADMK in a bid to make up for lost time has started sending relief materials to Cyclone Michaung affected Chennai, according to district secretary SRK Appu.
Appu, who was instrumental in sending two lorry loads of relief materials including rice, bread and biscuits valued at around Rs 5 lakh said, “the relief materials would be sent to Opposition leader Edappadi K Palaniswami’s house in Chennai from where party men would direct the loads to areas which needed it the most.”
Asked about the delayed response, he said, “We had to wait for directions from Palaniswami on what was needed and where it had to be sent as otherwise we too would have ended up by sending materials which failed to reach the people as was reported in a section of the media recently.”
However, party men were happy about the unfavourable reaction to the ruling DMK not doing enough for the flood-hit, sources said. Elaborating Appu said, “Only hiring the vehicles and sending men with them was my job as a local medical professional volunteered to provide everything for the AIADMK.”
The DMK meanwhile stole a march over its Dravidian rival in this region when party functionaries from Ranipet and Tirupattur districts sent relief materials from various areas. However, most DMK elected representatives, including Vellore MP DM Kathir Anand, MLAs P Karthikeyan (Vellore) and Amulu Vijayan (Gudiyattam) and Vellore Mayor Sujatha Ananda Kumar preferred to hand over the relief materials to Collector P Kumaravel Pandian who thus sent them as part of the official supplies.
Meanwhile, Ranipet Collector S Valarmathi appealed to the public to be generous in helping the cyclone affected. Though the district has sent around Rs 35 lakh worth relief materials in 10 mini lorry loads, Vellore district easily ranks first in relief provision having sent 20 lorry loads to Chennai till Monday.
“Chennai relies on relief loads from Vellore, Ranipet and Tirupattur districts as they are the closest to the affected area and can be reached within four hours at the most,” a Vellore official said.
