Siddaramaiah's letter to PM attempt to hide his 'incompetence': BJP

Dubbing Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him to intervene in the Cauvery water dispute an attempt to hide his 'incompetence', the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said on Saturday that it is totally the failure of the state government to effectively manage the crisis.

"Siddaramaiah in order to cover up his and his administration's incompetence is now trying to shift the responsibility to the Prime Minister in a case where the Supreme Court judgment has already been issued to release the water," BJP spokesperson S. Prakash told ANI.

He said that Siddaramaiah is very well aware of the constitutional procedures and knows that the Prime Minister cannot interfere in this matter.

"He is well aware of the Constitution. This ploy will not work. He is the chief minister and it is his responsibility to manage the crisis and see that the State's interests are safeguarded," said Prakash.

He added that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa filed an application in the court last month, so the Karnataka Government had enough time to counter her case, but instead of planning and coordinating properly to resolve the dispute back then, now Siddaramaiah says that they were not aware that the lawyers had given a submission to the court.

"Coordination was lacking, planning was not there, there was no strategy, irrigational experts of Karnataka failed miserably to provide inputs to our lawyers in Delhi which forced them to release 10, 000 cusecs (cubic feet per second) of water," he said.

Siddaramaiah yesterday urged Prime Minister Modi to intervene in the matter by organising a meeting of the chief ministers of all the southern states.

In his letter, Siddaramaiah also pointed out the ongoing unrest in Karnataka in the wake of the state releasing 15,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu every day in accordance with the order of the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court's direction was based on Tamil Nadu's plea, seeking a direction to Karnataka to release 50.52 TMCFT of Cauvery water to save 40,000 acres of samba crops this season.