Louisiana appears to have become a battleground state between Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns after Mitt Romney toured its storm- ravaged area, though the visit was described by its Indian-American governor Bobby Jindal as apolitical.
A day after accepting the Republican presidential nomination, Romney cancelled his scheduled election campaign event in Virginia for a trip to Louisiana to meet the people badly affected by hurricane Isaac, which hit the State early this week.
Taken aback by Romney's unannounced visit, the White House, hours later, too announced that US President Barack Obama would be visiting Louisiana on Monday, but the Democrats accused Romney of playing politics with this human disaster.
"It is the height of hypocrisy for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to make a pretense of showing sympathy for the victims of Hurricane Isaac when their policies would leave those affected by this disaster stranded and on their own," said the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid.
"This is yet another example of Mitt Romney's extreme right wing agenda, which asks middle class families to sacrifice in order to protect millionaires and billionaires from paying their fair share," Reid alleged.
Romney toured a small town of Lafitte that had been inundated with water.
"I'm here to learn and obviously to draw some attention to what's going on here so that people around the country know that people down here need help," he said.
With Romney taking the lead in the visit, Obama campaign announced that Obama has cancelled his planned appearance in Ohio on Monday and instead would be travelling to Louisiana.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters that this was in works for quite some time now.
The Indian American Governor for Louisiana, Bobby Jindal denied that there was any politics in it.
Jindal, who accompanied Romney in the day, told reporters that he had invited both Romney and Obama to the State and insisted that none of the visits are political.
"We welcome them both and thank them for their continued generous support. It is a big thing that both the leaders want to come down to and see personally… the damage," Jindal said.
Jindal asserted that there is "no time for politics" at this point of time.
"We are not talking politics. This is not the right time to do that," he said.
Ahead of the Obama visit, the Department of Homeland Security announced that Janet Napolitano will travel to Mississippi and Louisiana on Sunday, September 2 to meet with local officials and view ongoing response and recovery efforts to Hurricane Isaac.
