‘GoM, Krishna Tribunal did grave injustice to AP’

Hyderabad: TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday gave vent to his anger over the GoM and the Brijesh Kumar Tribunal and said that both had let down the state. While Brijesh Kumar Tribunal on Krishna waters had ensured that the state would have to make rounds of Delhi even to sort out a small issue like construction of a small canal, the GoM was trying to divide the state, bypassing all conventions and practices that were followed when 28 other states were carved.

Terming the GoM a “Gang of Ministers,” Naidu at a press conference on Saturday said that Congress leaders like Digvijay Singh and Chidambaram, Veerappa Moily and Sushil Kumar Shinde do not know law or constitutional procedures. They are leaders who are not acceptable to the people in their own states. It is the misfortune of the state that such people were trying to decide the fate of the people of Andhra Pradesh, Naidu said.

The TDP president said that his party would take up a national debate on the division of state with all parties. “Sonia’s decision to divide the state was a clear indication that she was a ‘power monger. “ Sonia, instead of dividing the state should make the entire AP as Union Territory (UT) and rule the country till her wish to enjoy the power was fulfilled, he quipped. The TDP leader also said that he would make public the “unconstitutional methods’ adopted by the centre in the dividing the state.

Referring to the award given by the Brijesh Kumar Tribunal on Krishna water sharing between three states—Karnataka, Maharastra and Andhra Pradesh, Naidu said that the state would have to depend on the ‘ mercy’ of the centre to get required water once the tribunal judgment was notified in the gazette.

He found fault with the Tribunal for allocating 447 tmc feet of water to two upper riparian states without consulting the AP. Taking strong exception to the tribunal’s direction that it would monitor water flows between three states from New Delhi, he alleged that the centre snatched away the ‘powers’ of the state government in getting its allocated water from Krishna. “Naidu also questioned the union government’s announcement to take up Polavaram as a national project when the issue was ‘subjudice. ’