Chennai: The State government has not deviated a wee bit from its stand on demanding the Centre to constitute the Cauvery Management Board (CMB), Fisheries Minister D. Jayakumar has said on Sunday.
“The Supreme Court had clearly mentioned it in the verdict that CMB should be formed. The Tamil Nadu government will not go back on its stand. We want the judgment to be implemented. We will not go back on our stand, not even a wee bit,” Mr Jayakumar said during an informal chat with reporters after participating in a function got up to distribute sewing machines and other welfare aid to the members of the public on late CM J. Jayalalithaa’s birth anniversary at Anna Nagar here.
Asked what the State government would do in case the CMB is not formed, the Minister replied, “we have total faith that the Centre will constitute the Board. Whatever be the case, we can only react after 29th.”
The ruling AIADMK has been pressuring the BJP-led government to ensure justice to TN by setting up the CMB. The party’s MPs had stalled Parliament on the issue and the AIADMK has even declined opposition DMK’s suggestion to ask its MPs to resign on the issue so as to exert pressure on the Narendra Modi government.
Meanwhile, much to the discomfiture of the AIADMK, R.K. Nagar legislator and leader of Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK), T.T.V. Dhinakaran launched a hunger strike on Sunday in Thanjavur, demanding constitution of the CMB at the earliest. The Cauvery issue, nevertheless, united all the political parties in the State and made them speak in one voice in so far as the issue of establishing the CMB is concerned.
