NEW DELHI: The water wars of South India dominated proceedings in the Lok Sabha for over an hour on Wednesday as members turned the discussion on the Motion of Thanks on the President's Address into a forum for airing their differences on the vexed Cauvery water and Mullaperiyar dam issues.

Differences between Kerala and Tamil Nadu over the creation of a separate Salem division by bifurcating the Palakkad Division of Southern Railways surfaced.

Cutting across party lines, members identified themselves with their respective States so much that at one point Congress member Seeramesh Tejashwini crossed over to the Opposition side to picket the well along with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members from Karnataka over the final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal.

As Karnataka members crossed words with their counterparts from Tamil Nadu across the Speaker's podium, Deputy Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal adjourned the House for 25 minutes.

The first salvo was fired by Ananth Kumar, BJP member from Karnataka, who said the President's Address made no mention of the water crisis facing the country. Bringing up the Cauvery issue, he urged the Government not to notify the final award and asked the Prime Minister to convene a meeting of the Chief Ministers of the affected States to arrive at a settlement.

As Tamil Nadu members objected to him raising the Cauvery issue, Mr. Kumar wanted to know why they were shying from a structure discussion on the issue forcing the short adjournment. When the House met again, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi's appeal to members to steer clear of the controversial issue — while Karnataka's request for discussion was under the Speaker's consideration — fell on deaf ears.

Union Ministers Dayanidhi Maran and T. R. Baalu also joined the war of words with the latter maintaining that Karnataka had been opposed to the Cauvery Tribunal from the very beginning. With Tamil Nadu members, keeping up their chorus of protest to drown Mr. Kumar's voice, Kerala MPs joined their Karnataka counterparts in demanding a discussion.

Though DMK member E. G. Sugavanam tried to cool matters by advocating reason in his intervention on the President's Address, tempers rose again when C. K. Chandrappan (Communist Party of India) brought up the Mullaperiyar issue. If the Mullaperiyar dam is not strengthened and repaired, and a new dam constructed, several districts of Kerala will be wiped out because of flash floods, he said. This again agitated the DMK, inviting a comment on their intolerance from Mr. Chandrappan.

Dwelling on how Tamil Nadu and Kerala had gained from each other, the CPI member brought up the issue of creation of the Salem railway division much to the chagrin of Tamil Nadu members. Stating that there should be more tolerance for the other view, he asserted that issues such as Mullaperiyar and Cauvery could not be discussed in chambers and must be discussed in the House.

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