DMK’s stand on Mekedatu project gives new stick to BJP to beat Congress with

Tamil Nadu’s ruling DMK manifesto promising the state voters that it would block the Mekedatu dam project that Karnataka is pursuing has given new ammunition to the opposition BJP.

DMK is part of the INDIA alliance that the Congress leads, and the BJP has accused the Siddaramaiah regime of sacrificing the interests of the state’s farmers to achieve its narrow political goals.

Opposition leader R Ashoka (BJP) urged Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to make it clear if he attached more importance to the alliance with the DMK or river water interests of the state.


Deputy CM DK Shivakumar had led a padayatra to Mekedatu during the Covid-19 pandemic, but the resistance to it has come from its own political ally. He urged the CM to take all Congress MLAs to Tamil Nadu and stage a protest demonstration against the DMK's election manifesto.

Shivakumar, however, maintained that there was no change in the Congress party's stand and would pursue the reservoir project to provide drinking water to Bengaluru. He told the media that what the DMK has said was its political wish, not that of the INDIA alliance. The project was not one for Karnataka alone, but it belonged to the entire country as people from everywhere were living in Bengaluru.

The BJP and Congress have been engaged in a war of words with Bengaluru's water crisis escalating. Ashoka had recently tweeted pictures of Tamil Nadu dams brimming with Cauvery water after the ruling Congress allegedly released water from the KRS.