Union minister Shobha Karandlaje demands White Paper on Cauvery water release

Union Minister of State for Agriculture Shobha Karandlaje on Friday demanded that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah should come out with a whitepaper on the release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu instead of leading an all-party delegation to New Delhi seeking Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention.

Karandlaje told reporters that the chief minister is trying to politicise the Cauvery issue --- first, he allowed the authorities to release the Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu and then called an all-party meeting and insisted on the PM’s intervention to resolve the crisis. 

“Instead of this, the chief minister must come out with a whitepaper on how much water he has released after the Congress party came to power in the state.  The Congress has released water to Tamil Nadu to keep its ally DMK in good humour. The Congress party can resolve the long-standing Cauvery issue as in both states - Tamil Nadu and Karnataka - allies are ruling. So, they themselves can resolve this issue,” she said.

Ridiculing the state government for releasing Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu, former chief minister Basavaraj Bommai said that the ruling Congress is known for drought years. 

“Whenever they are in power, the state and its farmers have suffered a lot. In the last three months, the state has witnessed a scarcity of water to help farmers, scarcity of funds to carry out development works and now, the farmers are also facing scarcity of electricity,” he quipped.