DMK president M. Karunanidhi on Saturday urged Chief Minister Jayalalithaa to intensify her government’s follow-up in the Mullaperiyar dam matter.
Responding to her statement, he said that when his party was in power during 2001-2006, the government had taken constructive measures after transfer petitions were filed in the Supreme Court. As the issue concerned the livelihood of farmers and the drinking water problem faced by the people, Ms. Jayalalithaa should not try to derive political mileage out of it, but step up administrative efforts.
He recalled the sequence of events during 1998-2001 after the filing of the petitions for transfer of the cases from the Madras and Kerala High Courts to the Supreme Court. As the Chief Minister, he held two rounds of talks with his Kerala counterpart (E.K. Nayanar) in April and May 2000 in Thiruvananthapuram and New Delhi, the last of which was held in the presence of the then Union Water Resources Minister (C.P. Thakur). But no solution emerged because of little change in Kerala’s attitude.
A committee of experts, constituted in June 2000, gave its report in March 2001, and the Centre submitted it to the court. Around the time the Centre sought Tamil Nadu’s views on the report, the Assembly polls took place, leading to a regime change, he noted.
