![[FILE] Both Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have been at loggerheads for decades over sharing of Cauvery river water | PTI](https://img.theweek.in/content/dam/week/news/india/images/2018/5/12/cauvery-tiruchirapalli-pti31318new.jpg "[FILE] Both Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have been at loggerheads for decades over sharing of Cauvery river water | PTI")
DMK’s national secretary and Rajya Sabha MP R.S. Bharathi said people in Tamil Nadu will revolt big time if the Central government continues to show scant regard to the feelings of the people of the state. He was speaking to THE WEEK on the delay by the Central government to submit the Cauvery report to the Supreme Court.
Said Bharthi, “The Union government is behaving as if there is no state like Tamil Nadu in the country. Mind you, such an attitude on its part will generate secessionist tendencies in the state. Already, South India is up in arms against the Centre over a wide range of issues. The BJP doesn’t have a good presence in Tamil Nadu, that is why it is playing with the emotions of Tamils. If Tamils revolt, it will be complete chaos. Other south Indian states will follow us.”
Bharati said the Cauvery issue has revealed the true colours of the BJP. “Everything was purposely delayed so that the elections in Karnataka is over. It was so obvious. It is high time Narendra Modi realised the Tamil anger and did something. In the past, we had protested big time against the imposition of Hindi on us. The Union government should not force us to do things that we don’t want to do,”said Bharathi.
On May 8, the Supreme Court chided the Central government for not following its order on preparing the Cauvery water sharing draft scheme by March 30. The Centre had pointed to the elections in Karnataka as the main reason for the delay in submitting the draft scheme.
“A draft scheme has been placed before the cabinet. Because of elections in Karnataka, prime minister and ministers are busy,” said K.K. Venugopal, attorney general, on May 3, to the bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, who heard the matter. Venugopal sought 10 days time from the bench.
Centre has agreed to submit the draft scheme for dividing the Cauvery water between Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Puducherry and Kerala to the apex court on May 14.
Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have been fighting over the draft scheme for the past few months. Tamil Nadu wants the Cauvery Management Board to be set up immediately, but Karnataka is not in favour of it.
“This [Cauvery dispute] is a more than fifty-years-old problem. It cannot be solved in fifty minutes. It takes time,” said H. Raja, BJP’s national general secretary. “All these protests and the talk of separatist tendencies is drama on the part of parties like the DMK. Modi’s popularity in Tamil Nadu is intact,” he told THE WEEK.
Raja said people of Tamil Nadu very well understand the sinister motive of the DMK. “During Stalin’s rallies against the Central government, he was not in a position to mobilise more than a few thousands,” said Raja.
Raja said it was during the UPA rule, of which the DMK was an ally, that a series of projects on extracting hydrocarbon and methane in the agricultural zone surrounding the Cauvery in Tamil Nadu began. “It is such projects in the delta region that will harm the agricultural activities and cause problems to the farmers in the state. The Central government will not do anything that will harm the interests of the farmers of Tamil Nadu,” said Raja.