Members of the Tamil Nadu Assembly were stunned yesterday when K C Alagiri, Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) MLA, demanded in the house that the DMK and TMC withdraw support to the Prime Minister, H D Deve Gowda, whom he held responsible for the failure of talks between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka on the Cauvery waters issue.
Speaking on the motion of thanks to the Governors address, Alagiri, a close confidant of TMC leader G K Moopanar, told the House that he had suspicions that the talks had failed because of Gowdas intervention and urged the DMK president, M Karunanidhi, and Moopanar to announce withdrawal of support to Gowda on this count.
The Chief Minister rose to say that his government would not betray the interests of the state on the Cauvery issue.
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He denied that the Prime Minister had played any role in the talks.
In fact, he did not intervene and even if he had intervened, the talks could not have succeeded as any settlement by him would not have been acceptable to the people of Karnataka, Karunanidhi said.