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Stalin rejects talks with K’taka over Mekedatu
Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin on Monday ruled out any talks with Karnataka over the proposed construction of the Mekedatu reservoir across the Cauvery river
Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin on Monday ruled out any talks with Karnataka over the proposed construction of the Mekedatu reservoir across the Cauvery river. Stalin was in New Delhi to meet President Ram Nath Kovind and was responding to reporters when asked if he would participate in talks with Karnataka on the issue.
“No scope for talks (with Karnataka). Our water resources minister (S Duraimurugan) has made that stand clear,” Stalin told reporters at the Delhi airport before returning to Chennai.
“The Prime Minister has assured us. The Jal Shakti minister has also assured us (that the project will not be implemented). The issue is before the Supreme Court. We will face the issue legally,” he said.
Stalin’s comments come in the backdrop of Karnataka chief minister B S Yediyurappa writing to him on July 3 and inviting him for talks to clear apprehensions over the project.
While responding to Yediyurappa’s letter, Stalin didn’t address the invitation for bilateral talks, but he registered Tamil Nadu’s strong opposition to the 9000-crore project. Successive governments in Tamil Nadu have challenged the project, stating that it would disrupt the natural flow of water from Cauvery, which originates in Karnataka and irrigates Tamil Nadu’s agrarian regions.
Stalin held an all-party meeting on July 12 so that Tamil Nadu can speak in one voice as Karnataka is assertive in its plans to go ahead with the project. Tamil Nadu’s petition challenging the project in the Supreme Court in 2018 is pending. On July 16, the representatives from 13 political parties in Tamil Nadu, led by S Duraimurugan flew to Delhi to hand over a resolution to union Jal Shakti minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat urging him to not give Karnataka clearance for the project.
Though the BJP is in power at the Centre and in Karnataka, the party’s unit in Tamil Nadu is siding with the state. The NDA government in Puducherry has also opposed the project. When asked if Tamil Nadu will hold talks with other lower riparian states such as Puducherry and Kerala, who have a share in Cauvery water, Stalin said that there was no necessity for it now.
In his meeting with the President, Stalin denied having spoken about the release of the seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. He had written a letter to the President in May urging him to remit their life sentence and release them early. “We will face the issue legally as it is pending in the Supreme Court, and the DMK will voice for their release,” he said.
Stalin was on his second visit to Delhi after taking charge as chief minister on May 7.
He invited the President to attend the centenary year celebration of the Madras Legislative Council, established in 1921 under British rule. It would include unveiling a portrait of his father and five-time chief minister M Karunanidhi in the Assembly hall. Stalin also invited Kovind to lay the foundation stone for new projects that the two-month-old DMK has announced – construction of a library in Madurai, a super speciality hospital in Chennai and a memorial tower to mark 75 years of Independence on the city’s Marina Beach.
