‘Stop blame game, get Cauvery water’

Dubbing the announcement of the Chief Minister in the Assembly on Friday that the government would not be able to release water for Delta irrigation on the scheduled June 12 as his inability to pressurise the Centre, DMK principal headquarters secretary Duraimurugan said that he was more pained by Palaniswami blaming the DMK for his failures than the government remaining mute spectator on the issue of constituting of the CWMA in accordance with the Supreme Court order.

Remarking that the people of the state would not forget the undue delay caused jointly by the ruling AIADMK and the Centre in preparing the draft scheme and constituting the CWMA even 91 days after the Supreme Court had upheld the state’s riparian rights, Duraimurugan, in a statement, said that now the CWMA has not been constituted even 22 days since the SC had finalised the draft scheme on May 18 and ordered the constitution of the authority before June 1. Though the Centre is directly responsible for the delay, a fair share of the blame must be owned by the ruling AIADMK which has gone into a deep slumber, ignoring the predicament of Delta farmers, he said.

The Deputy Leader of Opposition said the ruling dispensation here did not show as much care in mounting pressure on the Centre or getting water from Karnataka as it did to blaming his party. He urged the state to make efforts at least now to get water for Kuruvai cultivation.