Tamil Nadu turning into a desert, says Vaiko

Addressing a protest demanding the government to declare the state as drought affected, he said that if the rainfall is less than 50 per cent in a state, the region should be declared drought hit. In Tamil Nadu, this year there was only 38 per cent of average rainfall received so far, hence the state should be declared drought hit by government, he asserted. 

Pointing out that the neighbouring states were also denying water to Tamil Nadu, he recalled that Kerala was trying to go ahead with a new dam across Mullaiperiyar river and Karnataka has been planning to construct a dam across Cauvery, he said and added not to be left behind, Andhra Pradesh was also constructing multiple dams across the Palar River. 

“If the situation prevails like this, Tamil Nadu will soon become a desert,” he said quoting a recent study which predicted that the state would become a desert in another 200 years with the delta region the first to be hit.  As there was no rainfall the groundwater table too has reached the nadir in most of the areas in the state, rued Vaiko. 

He further claimed that he had met Prime Minister Modi in the mid of December and had placed three demands. First demand was to extend financial help for Vardah cyclone, second one was to stop the Sri Lankan government from enacting a law against fishermen and third one was regarding permission for conducting jallikattu. 

Taking a dig at the Supreme Court judges who pronounced the ban on jallikattu, the MDMK leader asked whether the judges who claimed that the bulls were tortured during jallikattu were also against animal slaughtering. He asked the judges to come down and have a first-hand experience of how the jallikattu was being conducted and he expressed confidence that the event would be held this year.