Congress, BJP slug it out at meet to discuss Mahadayi

The ruling Congress and principal Opposition party BJP on Monday decided to hold talks with their respective party leaders in Goa in an effort to finding an out-of-court solution to the Mahadayi river water dispute.

BJP leader Jagadish Shettar said a delegation of party leaders will soon meet Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar and try to convince him to hold talks with the Karnataka government on the issue. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah also agreed to hold talks with Congress leaders in Goa in this regard.

However, the parties sought to pass the buck on each other on finding an amicable solution to the issue. The leaders were speaking to reporters after attending an all-party meeting on the issue. The meeting was convened by the chief minister.

“Out-of-court settlement is possible if Congress leaders in Karnataka convince their partymen in Goa,” Shettar, also the leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, said. Cooperation of the opposition party leaders (Congress) in Goa is important for resolving the issue, he added.

To this, Siddaramaiah said his government would reach out to the Congress in Goa while the next course of action would still depend on state BJP leaders convincing Parrikar to sit across the table.

“We are an elected government and we will speak to the elected government in Goa. It will be unprecedented if we speak to the opposition party, but we will still do it. I hope the BJP convinces the Goa chief minister,” Siddaramaiah said.

Union Minister D V Sadananda Gowda said the BJP delegation from Karnataka is likely to visit Goa only after August 28. “There is a code of conduct in place in Goa, where two Assembly constituencies have bye-elections. We will go there after the polls,” he added.
The two states have locked horns over implementing the Kalasa-Banduri drinking water project. Maharashtra is also a party to this dispute. But the Maharashtra government has already agreed to participate in talks if it is organised.

This apart, BJP leader K S Eshwarappa and KPCC working president S R Patil clashed over the issue of Prime Minster Narendra Modi’s intervention to resolve the Mahadayi dispute. Eshwarappa pointed out that former prime minister Manmohan Singh could have easily intervened to resolve the issue, but he didn’t. This angered Patil, who sought to know what the BJP-led government planned to do.

DH News Service