Cauvery: CM joins issue with DMK on its resignation demand

Top AIADMK leader and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami today hit back at DMK over the Cauvery issue, saying the main opposition party was the one which enacted dramas and 'betrayed' farmers despite being part of the erstwhile UPA regime at the centre.

Ending his party's day long fast here to condemn the Centre for not setting up Cauvery Management Board (CMB), the Chief Minister made a point by point rebuttal to the charges by DMK working president M K Stalin's earlier in the day.

Stalin had demanded the resignation of Palaniswami and his Cabinet, alleging that the ruling regime enacted dramas and failed to deliver on the Cauvery issue.

Addressing party workers, Palaniswami said the Cauvery issue would have been resolved in 2007 itself had DMK told Congress it would quit the UPA government at the Centre over the issue.

Such a stand would have led to not only the publication of the final award, but also the setting up of the CMB and the Cauvery Water Regulatory Committee and farmers would have had no trouble, he said.

"DMK, however, betrayed Tamil Nadu and its farmers," he alleged.

Seeking to turn the tables on DMK for asking them to resign and for charging them with not having mounted pressure on the Centre, he said DMK did nothing when it was in power at the Centre as a partner of the Congress-led UPA.

"Now they are asking us to resign. They accuse us of not putting pressure. When Congress was dependent on DMK for its surivival at the Centre, DMK could have ended the Cauvery dispute," he said.

Denying DMK's allegation that his regime did not mount pressure on the Cauvery issue, he said "pressure was given both politically and through the government."
On DMK leader Stalin's charge that his party was staging a drama on the Cauvery issue, he shot back asking "who is staging a drama?"