Cauvery row intensifies as various outfits call for bandh; Deve Gowda seeks setting up external agency to study state's reservoirs

Bengaluru: Protesting against the release of Cauvery water to neighbouring Tamil Nadu, various organisations have called for two bandhs in the state, as the ruling Congress asserted to more "forcefully" present Karnataka's case in the Supreme Court and assured it will not curtail the planned agitations over the inter-state river dispute.

While one protest is scheduled to be held here on Tuesday, the other one, a state-wide agitation, is on September 29.

Former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda urged PM Narendra Modi to to direct the Jal Shakti Ministry to appoint an external agency to conduct studies of all reservoirs in the Cauvery basin.

He also stressed the need to have an appropriate distress formula applicable to all the states concerned in such conditions.

In neighbouring Tamil Nadu, a farmers' association urged the state government to take appropriate measures through the Centre to ban Tuesday's protests here.

The announcement for the Karnataka bandh on September 29 was made on Monday, under the banner 'Kannada Okkuta' led by Kannada activist Vatal Nagaraj, days after the 'Karnataka Jala Samrakshana Samiti', an umbrella outfit of farmers' associations and other organisations led by farmer leader Kuruburu Shanthakumar gave the call for Tuesday's Bengaluru shutdown.

The two bandhs reflect the divide among the farmers and pro-Kannada organisations, and has also now led to a confusion about who is supporting the bandh on which day, and whether services will be available tomorrow.

While Shanthakumar has said they will go ahead with the Bengaluru bandh on Tuesday, Nagaraj, who has called for a state-wide shutdown on Friday, made it clear the Kannada Okkuta is not supporting tomorrow's bandh.

Shanthakumar said they have received support from a number of organisations for their bandh call tomorrow and will go ahead with it.

"We will come in a protest to Bengaluru's Freedom Park and stage a demonstration there with our demands. The state government, the chief minister, will have to receive our memorandum. If there is no proper response to our protest from the government, we will decide on our further course of action," he said.

Nagaraj said they had asked 'Karnataka Jala Samrakshana Samiti' to postpone their bandh call and to observe it together with them on September 29.

JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy said his party would support tomorrow's protest.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said his government will not curtail the protests, but underlined the importance of maintenance of peace.

The state government will place its argument more forcefully before the Supreme Court on the Cauvery issue, when it next comes up for hearing, and is committed to protecting the interest of the state.

"We had filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the orders of the Cauvery Water Management Authority, and Regulation Committee. The court rejected our petition, also Tamil Nadu's. They (TN) initially sought 24,000 cusecs, then 7,200 cusecs, we said we can't even give 5,000 cusecs, as there is no water," Siddaramaiah said.

"The Apex Court did not accept it, and the matter is coming before the Court on September 26. We will place our argument more forcefully," he told reporters here.

Responding to a question on protests and bandhs being called on the Cauvery issue, the CM said, "in a democracy, we (government) will not curtail protests, but BJP and JD(S) are trying to do politics on the issue."

Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar also said that the people have the right to protest but that there should be no violence.

City police are taking all adequate security measures to ensure that no untoward incident takes place, officials said.

Meanwhile, Janata Dal (S) supremo Deve Gowda has written to the Prime Minister on issues of "resolving the ongoing disputes and differences between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in the matter of releasing Cauvery waters from Karnataka reservoirs to Tamil Nadu".

He said the combined storage available as on September 23 in all four reservoirs of Cauvery basin in Karnataka is only 51.10 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) whereas the requirement for standing crops and for drinking water is 112 TMC.

"The attitude of Tamil Nadu in pressing for additional releases far in excess of 40 TMC already released so far is not only unjust but also against all principles of equity and natural justice, considering the fact that providing drinking water is a fundamental right under the Constitution and it gets the highest priority in the National Water Policy," Gowda wrote in the letter.

He suggesed appointing "an external agency, independent of the party states and the union government, which has expertise in the field of Integrated Reservoir Operation Studies, for conducting the studies of all the identified/designated reservoirs in Cauvery Basin, immediately".

The agency should place the report of the studies before the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) and Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) for consideration in consultation with the party states, he said.

Meanwhile, in Tamil Nadu capital Chennai, the Tamil Nadu Cauvery Farmers' Association urged the state government to take appropriate measures through the Centre to ban Tuesday's protests in Karnataka against the release of Cauvery water to TN.

The association general secretary P R Pandian, accompanied by few supporters, staged a sudden protest condemning the neighbouring state for not releasing water. He was later arrested by the police.