TNCC to Protest against Karnataka Govt

Chennai: The TNCC would protest against the Congress government in Karnataka if it reneged on the mandatory release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu, the president of the State’s Congress unit, K Selvaperunthagai, said on Thursday.

He was inaugurating a water kiosk at the Teynampet Congress grounds to provide free drinking water to pedestrians and others in view of the broiling summer heat when media persons approached him for his reactions to the outbreak of the latest Cauvery crisis following Karnataka’s refusal to give water.

Selvaperunthogai said that it was the responsibility of the Union Government to ensure that Tamil Nadu received its due share of water in River Cauvery and accused the Karnataka government of political posturing by refusing to release water as ordered by the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal.

With the soaring heat wave making life miserable for the people and fears of water scarcity hitting Chennai, Chief Minister M K Stalin, who is holidaying in Kodaikanal with his family, is said to be planning to cut short his stay in the salubrious hill station and return on Saturday, a day ahead of his scheduled arrival to look into the problems.

Highlighting the heat wave sweeping across the State, the BJP’s State unit wanted the Chief Minister to issue orders to the Corporations and other local bodies to open water kiosks all over the State In a statement, the BJP spokesman, A N S Prasad, said the poor and middle-class people were forced to step for their livelihood despite the heat wave and take public transport or travel by two-wheelers.

To provide them respite from the heat, water kiosks supplying healthy buttermilk and water should be operated by the local bodies in public places, including bus stands and railway stations, from 8 am to 5 pm, he said, adding that summers had become unbearable due to the number of trees offering shade going down in the recent years.

Meanwhile, PMK MLAs, S P Venkateswaran from Dharmapuri and S Sadasivan from Mettur called on the Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo at the Secretariat and urged him to relax the norms relating to the setting up of water kiosks in view of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) continuing to be in force even after polling in the State had been completed for the Lok Sabha elections.

Though the Election Commission of India had clarified that water kiosks could be set up by political parties, it had said that permission should be obtained as per the MCC.