Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday dismissed as “politically motivated” Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s letter to the Centre pressing for constituting the Cauvery Management Board.
“Ms. Jayalalithaa is doing it for the sake of politics. This is nothing but politically motivated. Legally it [forming the board] cannot be done,” Mr. Siddaramaiah told presspersons in a sharp reaction to Ms. Jayalalithaa’s letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Both Ms. Jayalalithaa and Mr. Siddaramaiah met the Prime Minister recently.
Writing another letter to Mr. Modi on Friday, in an apparent move to increase pressure on the Centre, Ms Jayalalithaa said, “...the constitution of the Cauvery Management Board is not optional but an integral part of the final order [of the Cauvery tribunal] itself.”
Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister T.B. Jayachandra said appeals filed by the State questioning the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal award would come up for hearing in the Supreme Court on July 14. The Centre could not constitute the board when the appeals of Karnataka and other States were pending before the apex court, he said.
