Mohana Rao Dandamudi has a strong reason to be worried. Having blocked the seats for the eagerly-awaited annual visit to hometown Penumarcha in Vijayawada district of Andhra Pradesh and briefed his Chennai office to keep the papers ready for a client's meeting before the drive to the village farm, Dandamudi is now rattled by reports of outbreak of all kinds of viruses across India. News about debilitating flus and even fatal attacks by an unheard of virus called Chikungunya has got the Chicago-based Indian American engineer worried.

"Is it safe for me to make the trip or do you suggest I postpone it by a month? I have got urgent meetings with a few clients in Chennai and a family reunion in my village. What should I do?" asked Dandamudi, sounding truly worried.

India, for all purposes, has been seized by two viruses these past few weeks—Dengue in the north and Chikungunya in the southern states.  And these past couple of weeks, the more dangerous Dengue has found its way down south though the government in Tamil Nadu denies it with all ferocity—just as they have denied the accusation by rival politicians that Chikungunya has killed dozens.

The crisis of medical administration apart, the handling of the Chikungunya outbreak in Tamil Nadu was a sad spectacle of political skullduggery. Chief minister M. Karunanidhi and allies have been insisting that nobody died of Chikungunya in the state whereas the opposition AIADMK leader Ms Jayalalithaa has gone ahead and released a list of 232 dead Chikungunya victims and topped it up just now as 'over 290 dead'.

She has a strong case, pointing to the Kerala chief minister K. S. Achuthanandan admitting to several Chikunguyna deaths in his state and ordering remedial measures. How could the administration take proper steps to protect the people unless they first admit to the seriousness of the problem, in this case, deaths due to Chikungunya, asked the AIADMK Amma.

The politics of Chikungunya has assumed such weird proportions that getting elevated as the main propaganda plank for the opposition in the campaign for the mid-October elections to the local bodies across Tamil Nadu, the virus has provided the rival camps enough meat for debates and scoring brownie points.

Also, contesting her list of the Chikungunya dead, the chief minister demanded to know whether anyone had checked out the Jaya list of the victims. He did not of course come out with any findings from his official agencies regarding that death-list, save saying that some of those on the list were very much alive and a few others there had died of old age and other causes—nothing to do with Chikungunya.

Also, the Karunanidhi government is forcefully denying the existence of Dengue in the state, even though some medical practitioners have confirmed the viral attacks in Chennai. "I have seen at least a dozen Dengue cases this past ten days. The labs in the city hospitals are busy screening patients for IGG and IGM Dengue presence. The situation is not serious yet," said a busy MD in Royapetta in central Chennai.

"It is possible that the government will admit Dengue arrival and also Chikungunya deaths after the mid-October elections to the local bodies. The ruling party might feel embarrassed and ill-equipped to handle the Jayalalithaa onslaught that lack of preventive measures led to the virus going on rampage in the state," said a senior bureaucrat, who did not want to be identified for obvious reasons. He said it was possible that the state would come out with the true picture, even an inflated one, once the Union Government opens its purse for disbursements to contain the viruses.

This is quite on the cards, actually. Speaking to reporters at the Chennai airport before emplaning for New Delhi, Union Health Minister Dr Anbumani Ramadoss said he had convened an "emergency and very important" meeting of the state health ministers in the Capital on Wednesday (Oct 11) to discuss steps to contain Dengue and Chikungunya. The Delhi conference would also decide on budgets that the Centre could sanction the states towards this critical task, Dr Anbumani said.

Now that could perhaps hasten the Tamil Nadu government coming out with the true viral picture.