A defiant Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy said today he was prepared to nominate the state's representatives on the Cauvery Water Management Authority but not before the concerns raised by him were addressed, a day after he pitched for parliamentary approval to set up the CWMA.
Addressing a press conference in Bengaluru, a day after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on the contentious Cauvery water sharing issue, Kumaraswamy questioned the Centre's action of notifying the CWMA through a gazette notification before obtaining parliamentary approval for it.
"As per laws pertaining to inter-state water dispute, it is for Parliament to give approval to form the Authority, but the central government issued a gazette notification without debating it in the House," he said.
In its June 1 notification, the Water Resources Ministry had said it has framed a scheme constituting the Authority and the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) to give effect to the decision of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal as modified by the Supreme Court order.
Karnataka, Kumaraswamy said, will abide by the Supreme Court order relating to the sharing of Cauvery water with Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry, and was even prepared to send the names of its nominees for the panel "but not before the technical issues raised by me are addressed".
Kumaraswamy, after a meeting with Modi had said yesterday that the constitution of Cauvery Water Management Authority should be discussed in Parliament to address the technical aspects related to the Supreme Court's order last month.
Tamil Nadu's main opposition party DMK accused the Karnataka chief minister of raking up "unnecessary" issues which have already been rejected by the Supreme Court.
DMK working president and Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly M K Stalin denounced Kumaraswamy for "sowing seeds for a new problem and confusion", and accused the Centre of "willingly colluding" with the Karnataka chief minister.
Claiming that the Centre was "discriminating" against Tamil Nadu, he said in a statement in Chennai that the BJP-led NDA government's "deception" on the issue cannot go on for long.
He demanded that Karnataka immediately appoint its nominees to the CWMA, failing which the Tamil Nadu government should petition the Supreme Court to ensure that the state got its rightful share of Cauvery water.
"Our rights will be established by the Authority. We don't care about who meets whom," Tamil Nadu fisheries minister D Jayakumar said reacting to the assertions by Kumaraswamy and his meeting with the prime minister.
"The visit can be used to score political brownie points by Kumaraswamy and nothing more will happen. The Supreme Court directions on water sharing will be implemented by the new Authority," he told reporters.
Kumaraswamy said instructions from the CWMA like asking Karnataka to release water every 10 days, and on what crops should be planted would go against the interest of his state.
"If the Authority, in future, decides to ask Karnataka to release water once in 10 days in a month, then one can understand our condition. And if it decides which crops to be raised....I mean, it will not be in the interest of the people of Karnataka," he said.
"There is a need for Karnataka to have a say over releasing of water to neighbouring states because there are some occasions when there will be less water in our dams compared to the neighbouring states where the dams will be full due to rains," he said.
Kumaraswamy had earlier written to the prime minister, asking him not to operationalise the Authority and the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee, which is supposed to assist it in distribution of water among the beneficiary states, till the time the issues related to cropping pattern were addressed.
"Till the issues are resolved and a logical conclusion reached, enforcing the scheme for operating the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal Award be deferred to a later date," he had said, adding changes in agricultural system cannot happen overnight and peasants would take time to switch over to modern farming practises.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)