Karur (Tamil Nadu): Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa Sunday urged people not to vote for the BJP saying it too, like the Congress, had betrayed Tamil Nadu over the Cauvery river water row.
Her call against the BJP and its six-party alliance comes on a day when the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is set to address an election rally in Chennai.
Addressing an election rally here, 400 km from Chennai, Jayalalithaa said: “If Tamil Nadu’s rights are to be secured in the Cauvery issue, then people should not vote for the BJP or the Congress in the Lok Sabha election.”
She urged people to vote against the two national parties so thoroughly that their candidates lose their election deposits. But she refrained from attacking Modi.
“Tamil Nadu’s lifeline problem is the Cauvery river problem. Whether it is the Congress or the BJP-led central government, as far as the Cauvery issue is concerned both have the habit of betraying the interests of Tamil Nadu,” the AIADMK general secretary said.
According to her, the Bharatiya Janata Party would lose massively in Karnataka if their party leaders in Tamil Nadu merely say that they would give away the Cauvery water.
She said the BJP has not mentioned anything in its manifesto about the Cauvery dispute and will not talk about it.
Jayalalithaa urged the leaders of the MDMK, PMK and others whose party have aligned with the BJP in Tamil Nadu to say what assurances they have got from the BJP on the Cauvery issue.
She said the AIADMK withdrew its support to Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government in 1999 when it did not form an empowered committee to implement the interim award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal.
She said neither the BJP nor the Congress have any chance of forming a government in Tamil Nadu. But in Karnataka they have equal chances of coming to power.
So, Jayalalithaa said, both the parties toe a similar line when comes to the Cauvery row and betray the interests of Tamil Nadu.