“The state-wide shutdown is in protest against the Supreme Court’s order and to express resentment over the state government releasing the Cauvery water when we don’t have it for drinking and irrigation”, said Okkuta president Vatal Nagaraj here.
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Pro-Kannada activists called for a total shut down on Friday to protest against the state government releasing Cauvery river water to Tamil Nadu on a Supreme Court directive amid deficit rains. In fact, his predecessors Mr H.D.Deve Gowda, Mr S.M. Krishna and Mr Jagadish Shettar, too, released water to Tamil Nadu. “With a heavy heart we are releasing additional water in deference to the SC direction”.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has convened an all-party meeting later in the day.
The Karnataka government has stated that it will approach the apex court, seeking modification of its order.
“The Karnataka government was ready to release 10,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu for six days”.
The Karnataka government chose to abide by the Supreme Court directive to release 15,000 cusecs of water per day to Tamil Nadu for 10 days.
“As a result, there is not sufficient water in the reservoirs across the Cauvery basin to release or share it with Tamil Nadu as per the tribunal award”, he said. A day before the bandh, Chief Minister Siddaramiah made an appeal for peace and said, “We are making all required arrangements”. The protesters stopped and burnt the tyres of the buses on the highway near Mandya in southern Karnataka.
Mandya district, Karnataka saw a bandh with protesters holding road blockades and dharnas at several places in the state, as hundreds of security personnel – including CISF were deployed in the Cauvery belt to maintain law and order in the district of Karnataka. The KR Sagar Dam, from where the state will have to start releasing Cauvery water, is located in Mandya.
Inter-state movement of buses has since been derailed, and over 910 buses, both private and State transport buses that ply daily between Tamil Nadu and Bengaluru had stayed off roads for the last four days.
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It said the live storage in four reservoirs in the Cauvery basin is now at 46.7 TMCFT against their capacity of 104 TMCFT making the implementation hard but “constitutionally, it is not possible to defy it (the Supreme Court’s order)”.
