Activists of the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike laid a siege to the residence of Deputy Chief Minister K S Eshwarappa at Malleshwara Nagar in the city on Saturday, enraged over a meeting of officials convened by him on a day when the State was observing a bandh for the Cauvery cause.

According to sources, the activists staged a protest outside the residence of Eshwarappa and accused the State government of making no attempt to protect the interests of the State’s farmers in the Cauvery dispute. They raised slogans against the deputy chief minister. Heated arguments were exchanged between the police and the activists. At this stage, Eshwarappa came out of the house and received a memorandum from them.

Addressing the activists, he said, “Our government was forced to release water to Tamil Nadu following the direction of the Supreme Court. The MPs representing the State will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and urge him to revoke his direction soon.”

District in-charge secretary Lakshminarayan, Shimoga Deputy Commissioner M V Vedamurthy, ZP CEO Sanjay Bijur and officials of various departments were present at the meet.

Eshwarappa said he was not holding any meeting with the officials.  “IAS officer Lakshminarayana had come home to discuss about a programme to be held at Jog Falls on Sunday. We discussed about the arrangements to be made. We did not hold any review meeting.”