The Hindu : Karnataka MPs to meet PM

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 10, 2002

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Karnataka MPs to meet PM

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI OCT. 9. The former Union Minister and Congress MP, R.L. Jalappa, has suggested that issues relating to the controversy between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over sharing of Cauvery water should be sorted out at the political forum rather than courts.

Mr. Jalappa, who represents Karnataka's Chikballapur constituency in the Lok Sabha, said here that the Members of Parliament belonging to the State would meet the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, soon after he returns from his overseas trip, and seek redressal.

Maintaining that Karnataka had no water to give to Tamil Nadu since the State was experiencing the worst drought in four decades, Mr. Jalappa told presspersons here that the Supreme Court was not the right forum to settle such disputes under the Inter-State Water Act, 1959. He said the State had in the past released water to Tamil Nadu and this year too it had done so after the order of the Supreme Court and the Cauvery River Authority.

``When we have no water for ourselves, how can we release it to Tamil Nadu,'' he said.

The Karnataka MPs' move to meet Mr. Vajpayee, comes in the backdrop of the report submitted by the Cauvery Monitoring Committee (CMC) which inspected reservoirs in the State recently.

``Now that the report is available with the Centre, the water levels in the reservoirs can be ascertained,'' he said.

Mr. Jalappa said he had earlier suggested that the MPs from Karnataka, cutting across party lines, should resign in case the Centre failed to protect the interest of the State.

However, the State Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna, had denied such a move.

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