Extension Of Cauvery Hearing May Help Govt

The Supreme Court's decision to extend the hearing on the Cauveri water sharing issue to Monday, provided a glimmer of hope to the government that it could perhaps persuade AIADMK leader J Jayalalitha to wait until the court decision before withdrawing her group's support.

All eyes were fixed on Thursday's meeting of the AIADMK and its allies at Chennai, where Jayalalitha was to consult her allies before taking a final decision on her future course of action.

Senior Congress leaders however said that the government could find itself in a bind in case the Supreme Court did not agree with the scheme which the government had notified even before reporting it to the Court. Even they claimed no knowlege of how Jayalalitha would react next but an aide of party president Sonia Gandhi said that she might withdraw her support tomorrow.

 

However, an official in the Prime Minister's Office was "optimistic and hopeful" that Jayalalitha would wait until the court order. He did not rule out her withdrawing all the AIADMK and allies' ministers from the government until the final order.

"After all, she has to keep the public opinion also in mind", the official said. If the government's scheme had not been liked by the people of Tamil Nadu, there would have been protests by now. But no such thing has happened. The people of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have welcomed it and the government has also been able to meet the deadline of August 12 in notifying the scheme, he said. As against this claim, a senior Congress leader said that the government had presented a fait accompli to the Supreme Court by notifying the scheme before reporting it to the court. The Supreme Court deadline was for preparing a scheme and coming to the Supreme Court with it and not for notifying it.

Such a situation has never arisen before in the country when the government has issued a notification beofre the issue is pending in court, a Congress source close to party president Sonia Gandhi said.

Apart from the "hope" expressed by PMO official, there was a stoic silence in government. A Prime Minister's aide had suggested that Prime Minister's emmissary to Jayalalitha, Pramod Mahajan, would be successful in his mission. He had said that Mahajan would talk to the waitaing journalists the moment he came out of the meeting with Jayalalitha in Chennai.

The PM aide was proved wron as the day progressed. Mahajan did come out of the meeting but did not utter a word to waiting journalists. A second round was on in the evening.