The non-AIADMK and non-BJP political outfits in Tamil Nadu who have been demonstrating against the Centre for not constituting the Cauvery Management Board as per the directive of the Supreme Court is doing it only for their survival and none of them is really interested in getting the board constituted, say leaders of the BJP and the AIADMK.
“All political parties barring the BJP and the ruling AIADMK are distorting the facts associated with the Cauvery Management Board issue. I am sorry that the mainstream media in Tamil Nadu too has fallen prey to the campaign by these parties to discredit the BJP,” said BJP senior spokesman Tiruppati Narayanan.
He pointed out that though the Karnataka and Kerala Governments led by the Congress and the CPI(M) respectively opposed the constitution of the CMB, the political parties in Tamil Nadu have not reacted to it. “The Karnataka Chief Secretary had told a meeting convened by the Union Water Resources Ministry Secretary on March 9 that his State was against the CMB. Similarly, the Kerala Government has made it known that they were against the formation of the technical cell of experts. Both Karnataka and Kerala are stakeholders in the Cauvery issue,” said Narayanan.
Narayanan also said that Thol Thirumavalan, leader of the VCK, a Dalit extremist outfit, had held discussions with Congress president Rahul Gandhi recently. “But that discussion was for forging an alliance for the 2019 lok Sabha election and the leaders did not discuss the Cauvery issue. It was on April 22, the Karnataka Chief Minister wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking him not to constitute the CMB. Thirumavalavan is concerned about the next election and not about Cauery,” said Narayanan.
Maruthu Alaguraj, chief editor, Namathu Puratchi Thalaivi Amma, mouthpiece of the AIADMK, said that the opposition parties in Tamil Nadu stand out for their double standard. “The DMK is always charging that the AIADMK is in an alliance with the BJP. But M K Stalin, the de facto chief of the DMK forgets the fact that Prime Minister Modi called on Karunanidhi at his Goplapuram residence while he did not visit our Amma (Jayalalithaa) even once during her 76 days of hospitalisation in 2016,” said Alaguraj.
Thirumavalaan while speaking to reporters in Chennai told that his calling on Rahul Gandhi at New Delhi was to assure the young scion of the Congress party that the VCK would stand by a Congress-led front to defeat theBJP in the 2019 lok sabha election. Though the VCK is in the forefront in the demonstrations against the BNP and the AIADMK over the Cauvery issue, the topic did not come for discussion during the meeting between Rahul Gandhi and Thirumaalavan, according to sources close to the VCK leader.
Veteran scribe and commentator G Sathyamoorthy, a specialist in interstate river water disputes said both the DMK and the Congress were sincere in their approach to the Cauvery issue. “The Congress leaders from Tamil Nadu which include P Chidambaram and Mani Shankar Ayer though vocal about their stance on Kashmir has not uttered a word in support of Tamil Nadu over the Cauvery issue. Similarly, the DMK which was wielding power in the State and the Centre during 2006 to 2014 did nothing to get the 2007court verdict implemented. The Congress and the DMK are the parties that always cheated Tamil Nadu. Now BJP is playing politics over the CMB because of Karnataka elections,” said Sathyamoorthy.