CM presses for Mekedatu approvals before Modi

Bengaluru: Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the COSMOS planetarium in Mysuru on 13 November. At the same event, Karnataka Chief Minister D K Shivakumar publicly urged the Centre to extend cooperation for the Mekedatu reservoir and to grant the remaining final legal and statutory clearances.

He stated that the project has to be constructed inside Karnataka and that no external force can prevent it. Shivakumar further maintained that the reservoir is required for drinking water and that Tamil Nadu would also derive benefit from it.

Tamil Nadu Congress president Manickam Tagore responded on X by condemning the assertion that nothing can stop the dam. He described the Karnataka Chief Minister’s repeated insistence as contrary to the Supreme Court judgment and the final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal.

Because Tamil Nadu stands as the lower-riparian state, Tagore argued, Karnataka cannot unilaterally execute any scheme that injures its rights.

He demanded that the Centre withhold every form of permission unless the lower-riparian states give complete consent.

Approval without Tamil Nadu’s agreement, he cautioned, would be unlawful and would inflict serious harm on the livelihood of farmers in the delta districts. Tagore added that it is the Centre’s duty to ensure Karnataka is not allowed to place even a single brick at Mekedatu, that the Tamil Nadu Congress will never accept the project, and that the party stands ready for struggle at any level to defend the state’s rights.

Mekedatu has remained a central political and water-rights question in Karnataka for many years. The fact that the Chief Minister pressed the Prime Minister directly for clearances while the Tamil Nadu Congress leadership issued an open rejection has therefore drawn notice.

Congress leaders in the two states now hold entirely opposite positions, lending the dispute a fresh Congress-versus-Congress character. Separately, DMK president M K Stalin has written to the

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister pressing the state government to act on the Cauvery matter and has referred to the letter on X.

He characterised the river issue as a life-and-death question for Tamil Nadu and insisted the government must abandon silence and take the necessary steps.

The Mysuru appeal, Karnataka’s firm stand and the sharp Tamil Nadu Congress opposition have once again raised the political temperature around the Cauvery water dispute.-

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