After day-long suspense, the state government chose to convene a special legislative session on Friday to discuss the Supreme Court’s decision to release Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu till September 27.
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Karnataka has chose to defer release of water to Tamil Nadu until the two houses of the legislature meet for an urgent session on September 23. “It is an unimplementable order”, he told reporters here.
The government, the legal experts said, based on a decision by the legislature against the release of water, could go before the Supreme Court pleading “helplessness” in obeying the court’s direction for releasing of water in view of the conflicting directions from the two Constitutional bodies. They will release the water as per the order.
It was attended by former prime minister and JDS supremo H.D. Deve Gowda, Congress leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge and former chief minister M. Veerappa Moily.
Leaders of BJP, who stayed away in protest against the earlier decision to release 15,000 cusecs a day to the neighbouring state, expressed their willingness to participate in the legislature session.
The decision was announced by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah after a late night cabinet meeting.
BJP union ministers from Karnataka had conveyed their inability to attend the meet because of the union cabinet meeting, Siddaramaiah said.
The Supreme Court had on Tuesday directed Karnataka to release 6000 cusecs of water per day from 21 to 27 September-double the quantity directed by the Cauvery Supervisory Committee the previous day.
The Supreme Court had also directed the creation of a Cauvery Management Board (CMB), which would mean that the central government would be in charge of all the dams in the Cauvery basin with the state government having no access. In this background, the Cabinet has decided torequest his Excellency the Governor to call a session of both the houses of the legislature on 23-09-2016 at 11 am.
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Karnataka MLAs and MPs threatened to resign if the government did not take a decision favourable to the farmers in the state. “Everyone should cooperate”, Siddaramaiah had said. He said that he would taking part in the all-party meeting as it was imported to present as a united front.
