In her first-ever attack against the BJP in the ongoing election campaign, AIADMK general secretary and Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa said the BJP, like the Congress, had betrayed Tamil Nadu over the Cauvery river water row and urged the people not to vote for either national party.
Addressing an election rally at Mayanur, near here, on Sunday, Ms Jayalalithaa came down heavily on both the national parties and said, “If Tamil Nadu’s rights are to be secured in the Cauvery issue, the people should not vote for the BJP or the Congress in the Lok Sabha election.”
“Tamil Nadu’s lifeline problem is the Cauvery river problem. Whether it is the Congress or the BJP-led Central government, as far as the Cauvery issue is concerned, both have the habit of betraying the interests of Tamil Nadu,” she said.
Ms Jayalalithaa said neither the BJP nor the Congress had any chance of forming a government in Tamil Nadu, but they have equal chances of coming to power in Karnataka.
The BJP will lose massively in Karnataka if their party leaders in Tamil Nadu merely say that they would give Cauvery water. With an eye on the Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka in the elections, the saffron party has not even mentioned the issue in its 2014 election manifesto, she charged.
The chief minister also urged MDMK general secretary Vaiko, PMK founder Ramadoss and others whose parties have aligned with the BJP in Tamil Nadu to spell out what assurances they have got from the BJP on the Cauvery issue.
Ms Jayalalithaa said her party had quit the NDA in 1999 on the Cauvery issue, after her pleas for implementation of the interim award of the Cauvery tribunal by a body of officials with control over Karnataka dams were not heeded to by the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
Instead, Mr Vajpayee constituted the Cauvery River Water Authority with the Prime Minister as its head and four southern state chief ministers as members even as the DMK was ruling Tamil Nadu then.
“I opposed the authority as it would be of no use. Since the BJP declined to form an empowered group of officials, and that too serving no justice to Tamil Nadu, I withdrew the AIADMK from the government and party’s support to the NDA later,” she said.
The Centre then approached Mr Karunanidhi to get his approval for setting up of the authority after which the DMK aligned with the BJP and also participated in the Cabinet, she said.
Slamming the Congress, DMK and BJP for their “betrayal” of the state on the river water dispute, she asked the electorate to give a firm drubbing to the candidates of all three parties, saying they should lose deposit in the April 24 Lok Sabha polls.