MK Stalin to lead agitation in New Delhi

Party sources privy to a meeting chaired by Stalin with his senior leaders at the party headquarters Anna Arivalayam in Chennai on Thursday evening said the suggestion to lead the agitation in the national capital came from the working president himself and other senior leaders seconded the idea in the meeting. 

The agitation could be announced after the special meeting of the party executive committee, which would adopt ‘strong’ resolutions against the Modi and EPS regimes on the vexatious Cauvery dispute, here on Friday. 

“We should do something strong to outscore the ruling AIADMK and mount pressure on the BJP. A couple of AIADMK parliamentarians have publicly offered to resign after Navaneethakrishnan on the floor of the House threatened to commit suicide if Cauvery Management Board was not constituted by the Centre,” reasoned a DMK source requesting anonymity. 

“The ruling AIADMK will attempt to save its face by moving a contempt petition in the Supreme Court in the case or let its parliamentarian’s make belligerent statements like resigning their MP post or put up an elaborate show in Parliament. They will do it without offending the BJP, which should be exposed. Hence, we have planned a massive agitation in New Delhi against the BJP and AIADMK. The agitation, to be led by the Leader of the Opposition in Tamil Nadu Assembly, at Delhi will not be the only offensive. Much more will be announced after the executive committee meet,” said a senior DMK leader. 

The DMK, which suggested that all AIADMK MPs and MLAs should resign to mount pressure on the Centre, had also offered to resign en masse over the Cauvery issue. 

Ever since the Supreme Court delivered its order in the Cauvery case, the DMK has been pressing the state government to put pressure on the Centre to somehow get the Cauvery Board Management with the deadline of six weeks.