Cauvery dispute unites Dravidian parties
The Supreme Court’s recent verdict reducing the allocation of Cauvery water for Tamil Nadu forced leaders of rival parties in the state to meet and discuss its next move in the nearly century-long dispute with Karnataka.
Two major parties in Tamil Nadu — AIADMK and DMK — never shared cordial relations. The two refused to see eye-to-eye when either M Karunanidhi (of DMK) or the late J Jayalalithaa (of AIADMK) was the chief minister. There was always unease and tension between the leaders; one of them would leave the Assembly when the other entered.
The situation has changed, with Chief Minister Edapadi K Palaniswami (AIADMK) and Karunanidhi’s political heir, M K Stalin, meeting and discussing political issues. When Stalin had called for an all-party meeting over the Cauvery water issue, Palaniswami responded by holding a full-day meeting on February 22. During the lunch, it was reported, both were sitting close to each other.
On Thursday, the state Assembly unanimously passed a resolution for setting up of the Cauvery Management Board (CMB) and the Cauvery Water Regulatory Committee (CWRC), as ordered by the Supreme Court. The chief minister on Friday shot off a letter in this regard to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In 2002 when Jayalalithaa, the then CM, had called an allparty meeting to discuss the Cauvery issue, Karunanidhi sent party representatives. In 2007, when it was his turn to call for an all-party meeting, Jayalalithaa sent O Panneerselvam, the current deputy chief minister, to represent the AIADMK. The two never in person participated together in any of the all-party meetings on the Cauvery issue.
The recent developments came after the apex court last month decided to raise the 270 tmcft share of Cauvery water for Karnataka by 14.75 thousand million cubic feet (tmcf) and reduced Tamil Nadu’s share to 177.25 tmcf from the 192 tmcf, allocated by a tribunal in 2007. The Supreme Court compensated Tamil Nadu by allowing extraction of 10 tmcft groundwater from the river basin.
Opposition parties alleged the Palaniswami government did not properly present the state’s case before it. They sought an all-party meeting to discuss the issue. A couple of years ago, the demand would have been ignored by the ruling party but not this time.
In the meeting, it was unanimously decided to meet the prime minister to press for expeditiously constituting the Cauvery Management Board (CMB) and the Cauvery Water Regulatory Authority according to the Supreme Court judgment.
The Centre too invited the governments of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry for talks on the Cauvery river water dispute on March 9. The setting up of the CMB was discussed.
According to the SC directive, the CMB has to be constituted within six weeks of the order dated February 16.
Much heat over water
With the Centre yet to set up the Cauvery Management Board, the opposition parties in Tamil Nadu have urged the CM to push for en masse resignation of state MPs from Parliament.
On the other hand, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah of Karnataka had also convened an all-party meeting on the issue. The state government would likely oppose the SC directive of setting up the CMB.
PMK founder S Ramadoss has accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Centre of playing partisan politics in view of the party’s interests in the poll-bound Karnataka. The PMO, it was claimed, did not positively respond to a delegation, represented by all parties in Tamil Nadu.
Stalin said the Prime Minister’s reluctance to meet an all-party delegation was an insult to the people of the state, especially farmers. He told reporters that the CM informed him that Modi wanted the all-party delegation to meet the minister concerned.
He questioned the PM’s silence on setting up the CMB even during his recent visit to Tamil Nadu to launch Jayalalithaa’s pet project of subsidised two-wheeler scheme for working women.
Adding fuel to the allegations regarding the role of the BJP in the sustenance of the current state government and the internal decisions of the AIADMK, Panneerselvam told party workers that the merger of his faction with the Palaniswami faction was following a suggestion by the PM.
“EPS (Palanisami) and OPS (Panneerselvam) have been meeting the PM separately. Why the PM is not meeting the farmers, the DMK and other opposition parties asked,” Stalin said. Around 500,000 acres of standing crop, including 100,000 in the Cauvery delta region, has wilted in Tamil Nadu due to lack of water, according to leaders of farmers’ associations.