Goa’s compromise on Mahadayi began with Parrikar’s overture to Yeddyurappa ahead of 2017 Karnataka polls: Opposition

The genesis of Goa BJP’s compromise on the Mahadayi conflict with Karnataka began with former Chief Minister late Manohar Parrikar’s controversial overture to his party’s then CM candidate BS Yeddyurappa ahead of the 2017 Karnataka assembly poll, in which the former Defence Minister expressed willingness to consider the Southern state’s demand for drinking water on humanitarian grounds, the Opposition in Goa alleged on Monday.

Demanding a white paper from the BJP-led coalition government vis a vis the exact efforts made to safeguard Goa’s interests in the inter-state dispute, Goa Opposition leaders jointly warned of a popular stir, if Chief Minister Pramod Sawant did not agree to the demand.

Former Deputy Chief Minister and head of the Goa Forward party Vijai Sardesai also said, that not only did the Goa government’s compromise begin with Parrikar’s letter to Yeddyurappa in 2017, he also claimed that “Big Brother” in the national capital was calibrating Goa government’s decisions in the inter-state dispute and the decisions, were detrimental to the state.

“The genesis of the compromise is not only there. The genesis of the compromise is that we are succumbing to the ‘Big Brother’ in Delhi,” Sardesai told reporters at a joint press conference of Opposition parties.

In 2017, on the eve of the Karnataka assembly polls, Parrikar, then a Chief Minster, had offered to consider the Southern state’s demand for “drinking water” on “humanitarian grounds”.

Goa and Karnataka two states are already battling out a two-decade-long dispute over the sharing of the Mahadayi river in the Supreme Court after both parties expressed reservations about the award by the Mahadayi Water Dispute Tribunal in 2018.

The latest exchange of political allegations were triggered by the apex court’s assent to Karnataka’s request for notification of the terms of the Tribunal’s award, to which the Opposition claims, Goa’s counsel “did not even oppose” in the Supreme Court.

“We do not have the confidence in the Chief Minister, that he will put the interests of Goa first when it comes to the ongoing tussle with Karnataka over the Mahadayi issue. The government has failed to make a convincing case before the Supreme Court last week,” Leader of Opposition in the state legislative assembly Digambar Kamat claimed.

“We want a white paper on what steps the Goa government has taken to secure the interests of the state in the ongoing dispute. We do not see the seriousness from the state government when it comes to effectively putting forward Goa’s case,” Kamat said.