Fisheries Minister D. Jayakumar on Friday accused DMK president M.K. Stalin and former Public Works Minister Duraimurugan of seeking to create “unnecessary confusion” on the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) issue.

As the two DMK leaders were not able to bear “constructive steps” of the AIADMK government, they were attempting to gain “personal political gain” on the issue, he said, adding that there was nothing new in the DMK’s bid to raise the bogey that the State’s rights were being taken away.

He criticised the DMK for “not taking any step,” while in power in 2007, to get notified on the gazette of the Union government the final order of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal.

Giving an elaborate account of the rationale behind the Central government’s notification on the CWMA, the Minister recalled that on June 1, 2018, the then Union Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation had notified the creation of the CWMA on the gazette of the Union government and stipulated powers and functions of the Authority, all in line with the Supreme Court’s judgment. The present Jal Shakti Ministry, under which the erstwhile Water Resources Ministry got subsumed, would only handle measures such as appointment of chairman, members and member-secretary of the CWMA and chairman and members of the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee and pay fixation for them. “There is no scope for the Jal Shakti Ministry to interfere with independent working of the Authority,” he pointed out.