The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Karunanidhi wants Centre to convene meeting

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Sep 16, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Karunanidhi wants Centre to convene meeting

By G. Satyamurty

COIMBATORE, SEPT. 15. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president, M. Karunanidhi, today wanted the Centre to convene a meeting to ascertain the views of all State Governments on river water-sharing.

He was responding to a query from presspersons here on the crises in inter-State river water sharing. For instance, the Congress Government in Punjab terminated its agreement with Haryana, another Congress Government in Karnataka was unwilling to release water in the Cauvery for delta irrigation and the Congress Government in Andhra Pradesh was unwilling to give water to Chennai under the Telugu Ganga scheme.

The DMK leader said it would not be proper to fault ``one particular party'' for the situation. In all the States, such a situation prevailed depending on the other political parties. There should be an ``amicable settlement'', in arriving at which a Central-level meeting to ascertain the views of all concerned would be helpful. The situation should be approached with the ``utmost concern'' and with the objective of ``preserving the unity of the country'' and to benefit all States. ``Creating such a consensus is my counsel.''

He asserted that there was ``no setback'' to the project to link rivers. ``It is a project which requires deep thinking and hence gets delayed. There is no necessity to hurry it through.'' On the differences of opinion between the Left parties and the United Progressive Alliance Government at the Centre on various issues, Mr. Karunanidhi admitted that ``there will be different opinions in a coalition.'' But it was some newspapers ``which wanted to wreck the coalition'' that were blowing the issues out of proportion.

`Early poll unlikely'

To a questioner, he said there were no chances of an early Assembly poll in Tamil Nadu. Asked about the visit of the Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, to New Delhi to meet the Prime Minister (whom she had not met since he assumed office four months ago), Mr. Karunanidhi said, ``she is going at least now.''

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