Party leaders from State rush to Delhi, meet Uma Bharti
The meeting of the Cauvery riparian States convened by Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti in New Delhi on Thursday has turned out to be politically crucial for the principal Opposition party in Karnataka, Bharatiya Janata Party, which finds itself in a tricky situation.
There is a feeling in the political circles that any decision adverse to Karnataka or failure to provide relief may boomerang on the party’s political prospects.
At the receiving end
The BJP was at the receiving end as Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not give appointment to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to seek his intervention to bail out the State from the precarious situation of implementing the Supreme Court’s order despite the distress in its basin area.
Anxious about outcome
However, with the Centre now agreeing to hold a meeting between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu following the suggestion by the Supreme Court, State BJP leaders are anxious about the outcome of the meeting, especially as the State government has decided to wait for the decision of the Centre’s meeting to take a call on whether to release water to Tamil Nadu.
This was evident with the BJP team led by State unit president B.S. Yeddyurappa rushing to Delhi soon after the all-party meeting in Bengaluru to meet Ms. Bharti ahead of the meeting of the riparian States to brief her about the ground-level situation in Karnataka. Union Ministers Ananth Kumar and D.V. Sadananda Gowda too were part of the team that met Ms. Bharti.
Mr. Yeddyurappa told reporters after the meeting that they had appealed to Ms. Bharti to depute a team of experts to both the States to assess the ground-level position.
