Stop 'Mann Ki Baat' and focus on resolving Cauvery issue: Congress to PM Modi

Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not resolving the Cauvery river issue, Congress leader Nagma vehemently said that the Centre should take a stand and resolve the issue at the earliest.

She said that Modiji should get out from his 'Mann ki Baat' and be more proactive in such issues and should also take some decisions. "While Rahul (Gandhi) ji has come to the surface and walked between people and talked to them, the PM is busy roaming around abroad," she told ANI.

"We stand by the people of Tamil Nadu and we'll definitely take this forward to our high command," she added.

She stated that the Karnataka Chief Minister is working as instructed by the Supreme Court. Since the case is sub judice, everyone needs to wait.

When asked about farmers seeking water from Karnataka on humanitarian grounds, she went into the past and talked about how they always did everything for the lower society when they were in power. But she didn't shy away from mentioning that if Karnataka gave water to Tamil Nadu, they will end up facing water shortage in their own state.

When the monsoon does not deliver to its full potential, neighbors turn foes in the Cauvery River basin in south India. The Cauvery riparian states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are once again pitted against each other over the sharing of waters from the Cauvery river due to the weak monsoon that has left reservoirs in south Karnataka with less than the required amount of water.

According to Karnataka Law Minister T B Jayachandra, the reservoirs in the Cauvery basin in Karnataka has only about 51 TMC (thousand million cubic) of water at present, which is sufficient only for the drinking water needs of people in south Karnataka and not enough for release to Tamil Nadu.

With the Supreme Court directing the Karnataka government to release 15,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu in the next 10 days to meet the needs of the samba crop in Tamil Nadu, the Congress government in Karnataka finds itself in the same piquant situation as the BJP government did in the state in 2012.