Even as major political parties, including the AIADMK, the DMK and the Congress, continued their agitation against the Centre’s failure to constitute the Cauvery Management Board as per the February 16 directive of the Supreme Court, leaders of various farmers’ associations lambasted the non-BJP political outfits for their hypocrisy and double standard in resolving the Cauvery river water dispute.
On Tuesday, political landscape was in for a surprise with Chief Minister Edappady Palaniswamy and deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam joining the State-wide fasting announced by the AIADMK to condemn the Centre for not setting up the CMB in compliance with the Supreme Court verdict.
EPS and OPS joined the AIADMK Ministers and leaders of the party who were sitting in fast at Chepauk, the capital city’s usual venue for sit-in protests. They had party presidium chairman Madhusoodanan and senior spokesperson Gokula Indira for company along with some of the Ministers. Other Ministers spread out across the districts for their fasting.
The whole Tamil Nadu wore the look of a State which is on paid-holiday as many offices remaining empty and shops and business establishments downing the shutters. Various farmers’ associations had given a bubdh call for the day and the entire Cauvery Delta districts observed a total shut down in response to the call.
The DMK and alliance partners continued their road roko almost everywhere in the State as a prelude to the bundh which they are going to observe on April 5. Party workers tried to block trains but the timely intervention of the police helped to avert a crisis situation.
But leaders of the farming community lambasted the DMK, the Congress and the lefts for their failure to address the Cauvery imbroglio when they were ruling the country from 2004 to 2014. “The present agitation by the DMK, AIADMK, the Congress, the lefts and the fringe outfits is a ploy to divert the attention of the public from the failure and fraud committed by these parties,” R V Giri, President, Consortium of Indian Farmers Association (CIFA), an umbrella organisation of various farmers’ union told The Pioneer.
He pointed out that the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal had ruled in February 2007 that the CMB should be constituted immediately. “The Tribunal had also decided the quantum of water to be released by Karnataka to the riparian States. But the then government took more than six years to even notify the CWDT verdict in the gazette. It was gazetted only in 2013 and that too following the pressure exerted by the then chief minister Jayalalithaa,” said Giri, himself an ordinary farmer.
Kattumannarkoil Kannan, vice president, Cauvery Delta Farmers’ Welfare Association, which had fought the legal battle for Cauvery waters, charged that the DMK and the Congress together with the lefts were deceiving the farming community as well as the people in the State. “The DMK, the Congress and the lefts are responsible for the present state of affairs. When asked why they did not constitute the CMB while they were ruling the country, the DMK and the Congress do not have any replies. Right now what they are doing is vote bank politics,” said Kannan. He also pointed out that there was no unity among the political outfits in Tamil Nadu. “ The AIADMK is fasting on one day while the DMK is observing bundh the other day. Whom they are trying to cheatIJ” asked Kannan.