Former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda on Saturday appealed to the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre not to succumb to pressure of the DMK and other allies and notify the final orders of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT).
Addressing a news conference here on Saturday, he said a delegation of DMK MPs and ministers met Union Water Resources Minister Harish Rawat to pressure him to notify the final orders of the Tribunal.
“The contention of Karnataka has been that the tribunal order should not be notified as the petitions filed by the state are pending before the Supreme Court. This has been brought to the notice of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and opposition leaders of the Lok Sabha. I am optimistic that the Prime Minister will not take any decision in a hurry as it is the matter of life and death of lakhs of farmers of Karnataka,” added Gowda.
“Tamil Nadu politicians are so influential that they prevented me from raising the Cauvery issue several times. There was nobody to listen to the woes of Karnataka in the Lok Sabha,” he added.
Gowda asked DMK supremo Karunanidhi to send a team to Karnataka to check the storage of water in all dams in the Cauvery basin.
Water scarcity is likely to become serious in the coming months, he observed.