Bengaluru: Former Prime Minister and Janata Dal (S) supremo, H D Deve Gowda began an indefinite hunger strike near the Mahatma Gandhi statue in the grounds of the Vidhana Soudha on Saturday, demanding the Centre's intervention to bail out Karnataka from the ongoing Cauvery crisis.
Late in the evening, he withdrew the protest after two Union Ministers -- Mr H N Ananth Kumar and Mr D B Sadananda Gowda assured him of intervention by the Union government. These ministers called on Mr Gowda at the venue of his fast and appealed to him to call off the protest.
Congress leader in Lok Sabha, M Mallikarjun Kharge, too, appealed to Mr Gowda to call off his hunger strike in view of his age and poor health. Refusing to buckle despite Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's plea to him not to go on the strike, Mr Gowda was joined by former Union Minister, C M Ibrahim, and JD(S) rebels, N Cheluvarayaswamy and B Z Zameer Ahamed Khan among other leaders. Speaking to reporters before launching his protest, he said the Union government had a major role to play in such situations.
“I am aware that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inquired about this issue and I also know that he is concentrating on the problem with Pakistan, but this too needs his attention,” he insisted. Saying he was unwilling to blame Tamil Nadu for the present situation, or do it any injustice , he said the problem was Karnataka did not have enough drinking water for its own needs.
“We are ready to release water even at the cost of drinking water, but our only request was to send a team for two days to assess the ground situation. But the court instead asked for the Cauvery River Management Board to be constituted in four days, which will be a huge blow to the people of the Cauvery basin,'' he added.
Going by sources, Mr Siddaramaiah appealed to him to withdraw his hunger strike, saying he should instead give the state direction in its struggle on Cauvery, but was not able to persuade him.
Home Minister, Dr G Parameshwar, who later visited Mr Gowda near the Gandhi statue, came down heavily on the Union government for failing to come to the state’s rescue and forcing an octogenarian like the JDS leader to go on a hunger strike.
“In September alone the court asked us to release water six times. And yesterday it once again asked us to release 6000 cusecs. Now when at his age, Mr Gowda is going on a hunger strike, the court should understand the gravity of the situation,'' he stressed, adding, “ When we see the Attorney General committing to forming a Cauvery River Management Board, we feel that even the Union government is against us.”
Don’t release water at any cost: Oppsition
Opposition parties on Saturday asked the state government not to release "at any cost" 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery water every day for six days to Tamil Nadu as directed by the Supreme Court, and to oppose formation of the Cauvery Water Management Board.
Emerging out of a more than a three-hour long all-party meeting here, BJP and JDS leaders said they told the government to stick to the resolution passed by both the Houses of state legislature on September 23 that water should be used only for drinking purpose, and not be spared for any other use.
Soon after the all-party meet, CM Siddaramaiah went into a huddle at a meeting of the Council of Ministers which would take a call on the Supreme Court directive.
Taking Karnataka to task for its repeated "defiance" by flouting its orders on release of Cauvery water to TN and giving it a last chance, the SC yesterday asked it to discharge 6,000 cusecs from October 1 to 6, warning no one would know when the "wrath of the law" would fall on it. The court had also directed the Centre to constitute the Cauvery Water Management Board by October 4.
"We should not obey the Supreme Court order at any cost as it is unimplementable. The House (legislature) decision should be upheld. Government should stick to the decision,” BJP leader Jagadish Shettar told reporters.
