Asserting that Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has written several letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention in the Cauvery water dispute, Brijesh Kalappa, legal advisor to the state government said the latter has no time for domestic issues as he is out of the country on most occasions.
Kalappa told ANI that Siddaramaiah has written nearly nine letters to the Prime Minister seeking his intervention on the vexed issue, and added that the former has also sought the latter's intervention on the Mahanadi dispute, which is a burning issue as far as Karnataka is concerned.
"The Prime Minister does not have much time to deal with domestic issues because he is outside the country and he is mostly on foreign trips. For this reason, he has not been able to spend any time, nor do anything about the Cauvery issue. Thankfully, the Supreme Court has said that there should be mediation," he said.
Stating that there has been an all-party meeting and a cabinet meeting over the matter, Kalappa further informed that there will now be a meeting constituted by the apex court, adding that a decision over the water to be released or not will only be taken after that.
Karnataka has said that it will wait till the outcome of Thursday's crucial meeting with Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti which will be attended by Siddaramaiah and a representative of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who is in hospital and cannot attend the session.
"I am going tomorrow to meet Uma Bharti; all ground realities will be presented there. We don't want to disrespect the judicial order, but since we have no water, this is a resolution taken by us in the legislature. Going by suggestions at the all party meeting and our resolution, we are deferring the release (of the waters) till tomorrow," said Siddaramaiah on Wednesday.
He said that the decision to defer the order of the apex court has been taken after discussing it with the leaders of different parties, in which a resolution was passed to use the current Cauvery water only for drinking purpose and not for anything else, and since the top court has passed the order, the release of the water has been put off till Thursday.
The apex court on Tuesday directed the Karnataka government to release 6000 cusecs of water till Friday.
The court also asked Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi to facilitate a meeting between the governments of the two states to find a solution to this long-standing problem.
Karnataka government had said it was not in a position to release water to Tamil Nadu citing 'acute shortage' of water.
The Tamil Nadu government, on the other hand, has said that Karnataka is acting as a judge in its own cause and refusing to comply with apex court orders that are sub-judice.
Over the past month, both states are fighting a legal battle in various courts over the sharing and distribution of Cauvery waters.
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