DMK chief urges Modi to set up CMB

Days after the ruling AIADMK turned down his demand for an all-party meeting for a discussion on constituting Cauvery Management Board, DMK president M Karunanidhi today urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to constitute the CMB, saying there was no legal bar to do so.

In a letter to Modi a day after Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa asserted that it was mandatory to constitute the CMB, Karunanidhi said that 'kuruvai' (short-term) crops had suffered in the last three years and claimed that "many of the farmers in the Cauvey Delta region had committed suicide."

"I also wish to state that the issue pending before the Supreme Court of India is no bar to constitute Cauvery Management Board, because the Supreme Court has not granted interim injunctions to the order passed by the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal," he said in the letter.

He recalled his demand for an all-party meeting to "unitedly approach" the Centre but the state government had not heeded it.

Karunanidhi requested Modi to take immediate steps to form the CMB and "save the Tamil Nadu farmers from their sufferings.