Chief Minister and AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa on Tuesday flayed the DMK government for “having done nothing” on the Mullaperiyar dam issue.
Addressing a public meeting at Kanavilakku near here, she pointed out her government’s sustained efforts to protect and uphold the rights of Tamil Nadu over the dam.
Seeking votes for the party candidate for Theni Lok Sabha constituency R. Parthiban, she said it was her government that argued the case in the Supreme Court and got a verdict allowing Tamil Nadu to raise the water level in the dam from 136 feet to 142 feet in 2006. “But, the DMK government that succeeded in 2006, did nothing to implement the verdict.”
The Kerala government, through a special Act, fixed the water level at 136 feet and the case filed by the AIADMK government was still pending before the Supreme Court, Ms. Jayalalithaa said.
The DMK, part of the UPA-led government, remained a mute spectator and now it claimed in its election manifesto that it would impress upon the Centre to increase the water level to 152 feet, she said adding that “this is only an attempt to deceive people.”
“The DMK did not have the courage to condemn the Centre that acted against the interest of Tamil Nadu when the case was pending before the Supreme Court,” she said.
DMK manifesto, a fraud
Earlier, addressing a meeting to campaign for AIADMK candidate M. Udaya Kumar near Dindigul, she charged that the DMK election manifesto was the biggest fraud on voters. “The party was an ally in the Congress-led government. Why it did not raise the issue then? Mr. Karunanidhi is making false promises now.”
2G spectrum case
The DMK had pulled out of the United Progressive Alliance government not because the Centre had taken anti-Tamil measures on the Sri Lankan issue, but because it jailed former Union Minister A. Raja and party MP Kanimozhi in connection with the case, Ms. Jayalalithaa said.
She said the DMK remained silent during the peak of the 2009 war in Sri Lanka that annihilated lakhs of Tamils there. The party president, Karunanidhi, did not even condemn the Centre which ensured dilution of the US-sponsored resolution against human rights violation moved in the United Nations Human Rights Council.