BENGALURU: Former Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai on Thursday demanded that the state government immediately stop the release of Cauvery river water to Tamil Nadu, file an appeal in the Supreme Court and fight a legal battle.
The BJP leader accused the Congress government of failing to protect the interests of farmers and the drinking water needs of people in Karnataka.
"The government has been faltering on the Cauvery issue since the beginning. Already about 15 TMC water, by way of releasing 10 thousand cusecs (cubic feet per second) water every day, has been released as per the order of the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) directive but yet no legal action has been taken against it," he alleged.
Bommai wondered as to what was the point of Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, who holds the Water Resources portfolio, discussing with legal experts now when the government has already started releasing 5,000 cusecs of water daily on the instructions of CWMA.
An appeal against the previous order should have already been filed with the Supreme Court, which has not been done yet, he said.
"I demand that the release of water should be immediately stopped and an appeal to the Supreme Court should be filed and a legal fight should be initiated by making strong convictions. The Congress government has failed to protect the drinking water requirements of Karnataka state and the interest of the farmers," Bommai said.
Earlier, CWMA had ordered Karnataka to release 10,000 cusecs of water daily for 15 days.
Karnataka later appealed to the authority against its order saying that there were inadequate rains in the watershed regions of Cauvery.
The CWMA ordered Karnataka to release water to ensure that 5,000 cusecs reach Biligundlu in Tamil Nadu daily till September 12.