O Panneerselvam promises to retrieve Cauvery water rights

The Deputy Chief Minister, who presided over a meeting convened across delta to urge the Centre to frame the CMB said, “The state government, which has been following the footprints of their leaders like MGR and J Jayalalithaa will follow the strategies they applied in the Cauvery issue during their tenure.

He blamed DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi, who is from the Cauvery delta, of betraying the farmers by leaving all the chances his government got to ensure the rights of Cauvery. OPS pointed out that both the DMK and the Congress, who had a long-term alliance, had betrayed the people of Tamil Nadu without solving the Cauvery issue.

He also termed DMK working president MK Stalin’s Cauvery right retrieval march and human chain protest as drama. He further claimed that Jayalalithaa was the only leader who led continuous legal fights in the Cauvery issue. Jayalalithaa’s tireless work made the Union government publish the Cauvery Tribunal’s judgment in the Indian Government’s Gazette, OPS added.

“Following the footprints of Jayalalithaa we are also leading the legal protests and recently got a favourable judgment from the SC, which directed the Union government to frame the CMB within six weeks. As the Centre failed to do so, we again moved the court and are waiting for the next hearing on May 3. We will certainly retrieve our rights,” OPS said.