AIADMK MP threatens to commit suicide if no Cauvery Management Board is formed

CHENNAI: Attacking Centre for not setting up of Cauvery river water management board, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) MP A Navaneethakrishnan has threatened to commit suicide. Pressing for timely implementation of the Supreme Court judgement on the setting up of Cauvery river water management board, the AIADMK said: "Yes I had threatened to commit suicide if the Centre failed to constitute a Cauvery Management Board by the March 29 deadline of Supreme Court."

Navaneethakrishnan had on Wednesday said that all his party MPs should quit if nothing was done. "There is a demand in Tamil Nadu that all AIADMK MPs should resign. They want us to resign," he had said. Some of his remarks about taking some extreme steps were immediately ordered to be expunged by Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien, who was in the Chair. "I am expunging that from the record," he said.

When the Upper House resumed proceedings in the afternoon, Navaneethakrishnan raised the issue saying "a serious problem is now going on. The rule of law has become an empty phrase because our Constitution has become a failed one. "The Central Government refuses to implement the judgement passed by the Supreme Court ... Article 141 has become a meaningless article".

He also asked "if the Supreme Court's judgement cannot be implemented, then why is there the Constitution? Why is there the rule of law?"

Following the February 16 final verdict of the Supreme Court on the vexed Cauvery river dispute,the ruling AIADMK and opposition parties, including DMK, have been urging the Centre to constitute CMB and Cauvery Water Regulatory Committee (CWRC) within six weeks from that day to ensure the state received its due share of water from the inter-state river. The DMK has also convened an urgent meeting of its Executive Committee on March 30 to discuss the Cauvery issue amid strident demands by parties in Tamil Nadu that the Centre set up the water management board.