Tamil Nadu BJP to draw up Cauvery strategy at party's Tirupur meet

CHENNAI: The BJP executive meet scheduled to be held in Tirupur in western Tamil Nadu from October 16 is expected to chalk out its Cauvery strategy against the backdrop of demands from all opposition parties in the state that the Centre constitute the Cauvery Water Management Board at the earliest.

With the BJP ruling at the Centre, the state party unit has been under pressure to come up with a political solution ahead of the local body elections in Tamil Nadu.

"The pressure has been so great that our state president Tamilisai Soundararajan called an expert committee meeting earlier this month comprising specialists in river water management to prepare a document on what could be the options that can be explored to resolve the issue. She has subsequently taken all senior state party leaders into confidence and submitted a memorandum to our national president Amit Shah asking him to use his good offices with Prime Minister Modi to form the CWMB without delay," said a BJP ideologue not wishing to be named.

Political analyst M Kashinathan minces no words when he says that the state BJP has to "come up with a face-saving formula so as to be able to face the voters."

He believes that the fault lies with the Centre which initially accepted the Supreme Court directive to constitute the CWM but later got the Attorney General to retract on the plea that river water disputes were a state subject and it was up to Parliament to intervene. This has put the state BJP unit in a quandary especially as the party's Karnataka unit has a different view with the state elections due in 2018.

The two-day meet is also expected to focus on the spate of killings of Hindutva leaders in the state and what the Union home ministry can do to get the state government to effectively address the problem.

With the new TNCC chief S Thirunavukkarasar attacking the BJP for betraying TN interests by not constituting the CWMB, the party is under more pressure to deliver.