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Opposition failed to stand up for TN, says Jaya

Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa has blamed the 10 Union ministers from Tamil Nadu as well as members of Parliament belonging to opposition parties for not taking up the state's case on the Cauvery waters dispute with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

"Shouldn't they have taken up Tamil Nadu's case with the prime minister? Shouldn't they have told Vajpayee that Tamil Nadu should be allowed to enjoy the fruits of the Supreme Court order granting 1.25 thousand million cubic feet of water a day, before the Cauvery River Authority meeting under the prime minister could adjudicate on the issue?" she said at a function where she solemnised the marriage of some party cadres in Chennai.

Jayalalithaa said Anantha Kumar, Union minister for urban development and member of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka, had persuaded Vajpayee to call an emergency meeting of the CRA before the prime minister left on a tour of the United States on Monday, September 9.

She said the prime minister became biased against Tamil Nadu as the Union ministers from Tamil Nadu remained indifferent to the issue.

This is Jayalalithaa's first public comment on the CRA meeting, which fixed Tamil Nadu's distress quota at 0.8 tmc ft against the 1.25 tmc ft fixed by the Supreme Court on September 3 as an interim measure.

She had earlier refrained from commenting on the decision, saying the state would go to the Supreme Court again.

Jayalalithaa's comments came a couple of days after Ginjee N Ramachandran, Union minister of state for finance and leader of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, accused her of not taking the Union ministers from the state into confidence for arguing Tamil Nadu's case with the Centre.

Pattali Makkal Katchi founder S Ramadoss, another ally of the BJP at the Centre, had expressed similar views, saying Jayalalithaa was behaving as if there were no opposition parties in the state.

The Cauvery River Waters Tangle: Full Coverage

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