Chennai: Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan, the two top stars of Kollywood and chief minister aspirants of Tamil Nadu, on Sunday shared the dais at a protest in Chennai conducted by the South Indian Artistes Association to pressure the Centre to constitute the Cauvery Management Board (CMB). The two sat next to each other and exchanged pleasantries even as rumours continued that the once good friends are no more in a cordial relationship due to their contrasting political paths and their battle for the same trophy — the CM gaddi in TN.
Other big stars at the Cauvery event at Valluvar Kottam included Vijay, Suriya, Vishal and Vijay Sethupathy, the SIAA president Nasser, besides several popular faces on the silver screen. The protest-fast was joined by the Tamil Film Producers’ Council, Distributors’ Association and the Film Employees’ Federation of South India (FEFSI). They were forced to cut short the sit-in fasting as the police found it tough to manage the swelling crowd. The protest was also for demanding closure of the Sterlite Copper plant in Thoothukudi, against which the locals have been staging agitations, citing environment and health reasons.
Tamil Nadu has been witnessing protests over the CMB issue, with ruling AIADMK staging a hunger strike led by Chief Minister K Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam at Chennai on April 3, condemning the Centre for not setting up the CMB as ordered by the Supreme Court.
The DMK-led opposition parties’ state-wide bandh, demanding early establishment of the CMB, was held on April 5.
In its February 16 judgment, the Supreme Court had modified the Cauvery Tribunal’s award by increasing the Karnataka share of 270 tmcft by another 14.75 tmc ft while reducing the Tamil Nadu share. The court gave the Centre six weeks to formulate a ‘scheme’ to ensure compliance of its order and that deadline ended on March 29.
With the Centre not complying with this directive, Tamil Nadu approached the Supreme Court with a contempt petition against the Centre and latter too filed a petition in the apex court seeking some more time to devise the 'scheme' for implementing the Cauvery water sharing award. The petitions from TN and from the Centre are coming up for hearing before the Supreme Court on Monday.
