Even as Ram Nath Kovind and Meira Kumar — the presidential candidates of the NDA and the UPA — campaigned extensively in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry on Saturday and Sunday, Pattali Makkal Katchi, a constituent of the NDA has put a pre-condition for voting for Kovind.
The PMK has also asked the ruling AIADMK and the Opposition DMK too rise to the occasion and extract an assurance from the BJP and the Congress on the vexatious Cauvery Water issue.
“The PMK will vote for the NDA candidate only if the Centre gives us an assurance that the Cauvery Water Management Board would be constituted within one month,” said Anbumani Ramadoss, MP and leader of the PMK. Speaking to reporters at Chennai on Sunday, Anbumani Ramadoss, who was the Chief Ministerial candidate of the PMK during the 2016 Assembly election, pointed out that the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal in its 200 verdict had asked the Centre to constitute the CWMB for the equitable and judicious sharing of Cauvery water between the riparian States.
Anbumani said that the UPA Government led by the Congress sat over the CWDT verdict which caused severe hardship to the Tamil Nadu farmers. “Even today, farmers in Tamil Nadu, especially in the Cauvery Basin districts, are suffering hardship because the Union Government’ s failure to implement the CWDT award,” said Anbumani, son of PMK founder Ramadoss. He also asked the AIADMK and the DMK to convince the BJP and the Congress that they would vote for their respective candidates only if the major national political parties agree to constitute the CWMB.
The tribunal while pronouncing the quantum of water to be released by Karnataka to the lower riparian States of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Puducherry per year had also directed to constitute the Cauvery Management Board for the judicious sharing of the river water.
The PMK has just one MP and has no MlAs of its own. But Anbumani’s call to the Dravidian majors to stay away from the presidential poll if the Centre delays the constitution of the Cauvery Management Board assumes significance as this is the first time a political party has put up a demand to vote for a candidate in the presidential election.
According to all major political parties in Tamil Nadu, the delay in the constitution of the CWMB is causing hardship to the farmers in the State for whom the Cauvery River is the lifeline. Tamil Nadu is undergoing the worst drought in its history and the State has seen crops getting destroyed during the last six years. Since Tamil Nadu has no major rivers originating in the State, it is fully dependent on water from Cauvery originating from Karnataka and the Mullaperiyar Dam in Kerala.
Any failure in Monsoon (south west monsoon in June and the North-East Monsoon in October) causes havoc in Tamil Nadu. Ramadoss, founder of the PMK and father of Anbumani has been demanding for the last four decades for the nationalisation of all rivers in India.