Coimbatore : Hunger strike by ruling AIADMK, picketing by DMK and closure of majority of the shops marked the protest against the Centre’s failure to constitute the Cauvery Management Board on the third day in the western districts of Tamil Nadu today.

About 600 AIADMK workers, led by Municipal Administration minister S P Velumani, are on one-day hunger strike under a specially erected pandal in Gandhipuram in the city.

Similarly, Minister Udumalai Radhakrishnan led the fast in nearby Tirupur along with Deputy Speaker Pollachi V Jayaraman and nearly 700 party workers. In Salem, AIADMK organising secretary Ponnaiayan is leading the fast.

Separately, nearly 250 activists of the Opposition DMK, led by N Karthik, MLA, were arrested, when they attempted to lay siege to the international airport here. The workers raised slogans against both the Centre and State Governments for their failure to set up the board, police said.

There was a minor skirmish between party workers and police for a few minutes. According to local traders and hotel associations, majority of the shops, hotels and medical shopsdowned their shutters in Coimbatore, Tirupur and Nilgiris districts to express their solidarity for the Cauvery cause.

Nearly 700 hotels, 1,300 bakeries and eateries and over 1,000 medical shops were closed in the district today, they said.