Cauvery dispute: Jayalalithaa accuses Karunanidhi of double standards

Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Tuesday accused DMK president M Karunanidhi of adopting double standards on the Cauvery dispute, Kudankulam nuclear project and power shortage.

"It was Karunanidhi who betrayed the interests of state in the Cauvery river water issue. In the assembly, he said Tamil Nadu had no objection to Karnataka building the Hemavathi dam," Jayalalithaa said in a statement.

She said that in 1972, Karunanidhi as the chief minister withdrew the case filed in the Supreme Court against Karnataka in 1971 without informing the assembly in the face of political pressure.

Jayalalithaa also said the Rs 500 crore developmental projects in and around Kudankulam would be taken up after normalcy returned there.

She said the Rs 500 crore developmental projects in and around Kudankulam would be taken up after normalcy returned there.

Villagers are protesting the setting up of two 1,000-MW nuclear reactors at Kudankulam in Tirunelveli district, around 650 km from here.

Jayalalithaa said she took steps to form central and state expert panels to clarify the fears of the villagers.

She said Karunanidhi had earlier wanted the central and the state governments to take steps to commission the nuclear plant but now he wanted the state to hold a dialogue with the protestors.

She said that on foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail and hike in diesel price too, Karunanidhi was adopting double standards.

She said the political affairs committee of the central government had decided on diesel price hike and Karunanidhi's son and union minister M.K. Alagiri was a member of that committee.

She said Karunanidhi should clarify whether Alagiri participated in the meeting of the committee and opposed the centre's decision to hike the diesel prices.

(For updates you can share with your friends, follow IBNLive on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest)