@_anithasridhar how well manpower being used in times of disaster ! pic.twitter.com/xBpubQ3d5A — sivasankar (@shiva_papillon) December 4, 2015

(With agency inputs)

NEW DELHI: As Chennai on Friday battled hard to pick up the pieces of its life ravaged by severe torrential rain, the alleged politicisation of relief and rescue efforts by Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and her party, the AIADMK , has outraged many people in Tamil Nadu .Several people on Twitter have alleged that relief materials are being allowed in certain areas only when they carry a mandatory sticker with Amma's (as Jayalalithaa is addressed by her supporters) face. They have shared images of AIADMK volunteers sticking such posters and fliers on relief packets to be distributed to the stranded people in Chennai, Cuddalore and other places."...how well manpower being used in times of disaster!" commented @shiva_papillon on Twitter.Anger spilled on to the streets when senior ministers Natham Viswanathan, Sellur Raju and Gokul Indira visited R K Nagar, Jayalalithaa's constituency, where people gheraoed and heckled them, forcing them to make a hasty retreat.Later at a press conference in the Secretariat, the first in recent days, power minister Natham Viswanathan and Chief Secretary Gnanadesikan claimed that relief and rescue works were in full swing and were "extraordinary".The minister described the opposition criticism of relief work as politically-motivated with an eye on assembly elections early next year.Meanwhile, hundreds of military personnel and social activists were engaged in a major operation of supplying food, water and blankets to thousands trapped in water-logged neighbourhoods -- and rescuing the still marooned.Occasional heavy rains threatened to revive the ghost of flooding in Chennai as lakhs of people in the worst-hit areas faced acute short supply of essentials including water, power, milk and food items.Heavy rains battered the city again on Friday evening just as life began to limp to normalcy amid persisting power cuts and food shortages in Chennai and three other Tamil Nadu districts where floods and downpour have claimed 325 lives.There was partial relief as water levels in the main reservoirs and rivers began to fall. The rains have caused widespread destruction in the districts of Chennai, Cuddalore, Kanchipuram and Thiruvallur.