DMK urges Tamil Nadu chief minister to support TDP’s no-trust motion in Parliament

If Palaniswami is truly interested in the constitution of the Cauvery Management Board within six weeks, he should courageously decide to support the no-trust motion, says DMK leader MK Stalin.

Mounting pressure on the AIADMK over the Cauvery issue, DMK on Saturday said chief minister K Palaniswami should extend support to the no-trust motion moved by TDP in the Lok Sabha if he was “truly interested” in the constitution of Cauvery Management Board (CMB).

Tamil Nadu chief minister K Palaniswami.(PTI file photo)

“If Palaniswami is truly interested in the constitution of the CMB within six weeks, he should courageously decide to support the no-trust motion,” DMK leader MK Stalin said.

Days after the Tamil Nadu assembly adopted a resolution urging the Centre to set up the CMB, the DMK leader, who has been targeting the ruling regime on the Cauvery issue, said this was “an opportune moment” to establish Tamil Nadu’s rights over the Cauvery.

Stalin, who is also leader of the opposition in the Assembly, said the AIADMK regime should not let such an opportunity go by.

If his party had representation in the Lok Sabha, DMK would have immediately supported the move, said.

Speaking to reporters here, he said constitution of CMB remained a question mark. It was under such circumstances and to exert pressure on the Union government that his party had mooted en masse resignation of all MLAs and MPs of Tamil Nadu.

“The state government, led by the AIADMK, should come forward to take such a step and when it does that, we in the opposition will follow suit,” he said.

Ending its four-year-old alliance with BJP, the Telugu Desam Party on Friday pulled out of the NDA over the Centre’s refusal to grant Special Category Status to Andhra Pradesh and simultaneously moved a no-trust motion in Parliament.

Blaming the BJP-led Centre for its “big brother attitude,” the DMK leader said his party was duty-bound to welcome TDP’s decision as an organisation committed to states’ autonomy.

On his reported demand for “Dravida Nadu,” (conceptually it means a separate union of five southern states and the Union Territory of Puducherry), Stalin blamed the media,saying they had made it appear as if he had asked for it.

“I was posed a question by reporters yesterday at Erode. My view was sought on something that seemed to give an impression as though southern states were giving a push for Dravida Nadu ideology...I replied that we will support it if such a situation emerged,” he said.

However, “the media is doing propaganda for their own publicity, making it seem as if I had demanded Dravida Nadu and as though we were voicing support for it.”

DMK founder leader and former chief minister CN Annadurai had given up in 1962 his party’s once well-known secessionist demand for a separate Dravida Nadu comprising southern Indian States.

Quoting Annadurai, he said the reasons, however, for making such a demand remained the same.

Stalin said “we are now seeing how the southern States are being ignored by the BJP-regime at the Centre.”