At a cabinet meeting held in Karnataka today it was decided that water shall not be released until a special session of the legislative assembly is convened on Saturday. It wanted the states to divide the water during such a year on pro-rata basis, as per its allocations-out of 740 TMC water available in the basin, 419 TMC ft to Tamil Nadu, 270 TMC ft to Karnataka, 30 TMC ft to Kerala, 7 TMC ft to Pondicherry and 14 TMC ft to be left for environmental purposes. Former PM, HD Deve Gowda (who was attending his first all-party meeting in Vidhana Soudha since he stepped down as CM in 1996) took the lead and asked the state government to take the tough decision not to release Cauvery water to TN. The state government said the issue will be discussed in a special session of the state legislature scheduled for Friday. Security was tightened around Bengaluru to maintain law and order in the state.
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Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had termed the Supreme Court’s order as “unimplementable” on Tuesday.
Chennai: The release of Dhanush-starrer Tamil action-thriller “Thodari”, which is completely shot on a moving train, has been delayed in Karnataka owing to the ongoing dispute over the release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu.
Many senior Congress MPs, including Mallikarjun Kharge, Oscar Fernandes, Rehman Khan and Veerappa Moily, attended the meeting, along with JD (S) supremo H D Deve Gowda and his son H D Kumaraswamy. With assembly polls one and a half years away, the Congress government can not afford to take the Supreme Court head on.
Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council, KS Eshwarappa said that the previous all-party meeting had been futile.
The party has demanded that the government should call the Assembly session immediately to decide the issue.
“We are committed to protecting the interests of our farmers and meet the drinking water needs of Mysuru, Bengaluru and other cities”.
These pending litigations in the SC have bound the hands of the central government from forming the Cauvery Management Board, which the apex court has now asked the Centre to establish in four weeks in a highly optimistic order.
“Though belated, it is a welcome decision”.
As he faced a fresh challenge on the raging Cauvery row at a time when protests were abating, Siddaramaiah said that Karnataka does not have water and it would be hard to implement the SC order.
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The minister, however, said the legal team will continue its fight by seeking modification of the top court’s order to release 6,000 cusecs.
