ANDIPATTI — The Leader of the Opposition addressed farmers in Theni district on Tuesday to ask whether they wished to re-elect a government that had failed to act on the Mullaperiyar dam issue, raising a concern that farmers in the same district described to this publication twelve days earlier as the defining feature of every election campaign they had witnessed.

The opposition leader, whose party governed Tamil Nadu from 2016 to 2021, assured the gathering that the current government had squandered a historic opportunity by failing to raise the storage level beyond 142 feet — a level last increased by court order under the previous AIADMK administration, after which no further progress was made during the remaining years of AIADMK governance.

"The Tamil Nadu government could have worked wonders," the opposition leader said, referring to the present DMK administration, using language that a review of press archives suggests is broadly interchangeable with statements made about the AIADMK administration by DMK leaders at equivalent campaign events in 2021.

Farmer Ponkatchi Kannan of the Periyar Vaigai Paasana Vivasayigal Sangam, speaking to The Hindu earlier this month, had noted that no Chief Minister, Water Resources Minister, or department secretary had visited the Mullaperiyar dam or the Cumbum valley at any point since May 2021. He did not specify which government's ministers had visited during the preceding five years.

The opposition leader did not address this question from the podium.

Another farmer, who identified himself as a DMK sympathiser, told The Hindu that the party "had not responded as it should have" to the Mullaperiyar issue — a formulation that political observers noted was grammatically compatible with assessments of the previous government as well.

The DMK's 525 election announcements from 2021, which the opposition leader cited as largely unfulfilled, were not compared to the preceding administration's equivalent pre-election announcements, as the relevant files were not available at the venue.

Kerala, whose PWD, Tourism and Forests ministers have made multiple visits to the dam site and taken documented steps on the reservoir, was not asked to comment on its neighbours' electoral calendar.

The five southern districts dependent on Mullaperiyar water — Theni, Dindigul, Madurai, Sivaganga and Ramanathapuram — will go to the polls shortly. Farmers said they were looking forward to the next set of promises.