CHENNAI: The ongoing dispute over the sharing of Cauvery river water between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu took an seriously acrimonious turn on Friday with people tearing up posters of Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay’s latest film ‘Jana Nayaga’ leading to the cancellation of the movie screening and organizing protests in places like Mandya by standing in knee-deep water impelling Karnataka Chief Minister D K Shivakumar to urge his Tamil Nadu counterpart to put on hold the proposed visit to Bengaluru on August 3.
While Karnataka plunged into upheaval with pro-Kannada groups and even the State BJP insisting on the outright rejection of the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) order on the release of 3,500 cusecs of water daily to Tamil Nadu for the next 15 days, despite the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) upholding it, political parties in Tamil Nadu, other than the Congress, stood united raising their voice to secure the State’s rightful share.
State Minister C T R Nirmal Kumar told the media that Tamil Nadu would move the Supreme Court to make Karnataka release water and final decision on the next move would be decided by Vijay.
The Karnataka unit of the BJP launched its protest by taking out a march to Krishnaraja Sagar (KRS) reservoir, from where water is released to Tamil Nadu, to prevent its opening on the basis of the CWMA order. BJP’s Karnataka president B Y Vijeyendra led a march amidst the tense situation in that State.
Vijay held discussions with ministerial colleagues, senior officials and experts to prepare documents to drive home the point that Karnataka had reneged in its commitment to release water to Tamil Nadu to present them to his Karnataka counterpart during the meeting in Bengaluru and demand the immediate release of water.
A 13-member team was also identified to visit Bengaluru along with Vijay. But now that the visit has been put off, he will have to explore other avenues to make Karnataka release water in Cauvery. Apart from approaching the Supreme Court, the options before the State government are seeking the formation of a fresh tribunal with more teeth to monitor the release of water on a regular basis, press the Union Government to ensure that Karnataka abided by the court order and finally hold direct talks with the neighbouring State.
But holding talks now when the situation on the ground had turned toxic with the local people tearing up posters of Vijay’s films and raising anti-Tamil Nadu slogans, holding talks might not work out. Whether the Union BJP government would intervene has also become a question since the State BJP has gone to the extent of laying a siege of the KRS dam to prevent the release of water.
So the State government might, besides taking legal recourse, seek out to the political parties to put up a united political fight by calling for an all-party meeting and by involving the people in the fight for water. Karnataka has already called for a Karnataka Bandh on August 13.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
