Move Supreme Court and get stay on Mekdatu, Siruvani dam issues: Karunanidhi to Jayalalithaa

In a statement, he said Ms Jayalalithaa should not waste any more time in moving the Supreme Court to protect the State's rights on these issues.

He also wanted Ms Jayalalithaa to exert political pressure on the Centre to withdraw the 'backdoor' recommendations made by the Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) for River Valley and Hydroelectric projects for grant of Standard Terms of Reference for conducting an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study on the Kerala government's proposal to build a dam across Siruvani river at Attappady without getting the views of the Tamil Nadu government.

Observing that writing letters to the Prime Minister alone would not solve these problems, Mr Karunanidhi said if the Kerala government was allowed to constructa dam across Siruvani river, the three districts of Coimbatore, Erode and Tiruppur would be converted into a desert. 

He also alleged that since the government led by Ms Jayalalithaa had failed to take steps to maintain cordial relations with neighbouring states, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala have started betraying the interests of Tamil Nadu on inter-state river issues.

Mr Karunanidhi also said the DMK would stage a protest demonstration at Coimbatore tomorrow to urge the Centre to prevent Kerala from constructing a new dam at Attappady across Siruvani river.