Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who is looking to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for help in the Cauvery water sharing issue with Tamil Nadu, is yet to get a reply — or invitation to talk — from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

Siddaramaiah, who has run out of all options, wrote to Modi, seeing an appointment to brief him about Karnataka’s position.

He is banking on the Centre’s intervention, as the issue is between two States that don’t see eye-to-eye. Karnataka is hoping to use the PM’s good offices to tide over the crisis.

With a tough-to-handle Jayalalithaa as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Karnataka has been repeatedly taking the Centre’s help in dealing with the Cauvery issue. It had similarly sought help when PV Narasimha Rao and Atal Bihari Vajpayee were Prime Ministers.

This time around, Karnataka is under the Congress while TN is under the AIADMK, with is no ally to mediate.

Earlier in the day, Siddaramaiah held a long meeting with former Supreme Court and high court judges to take their views to prepare the State to face the Cauvery Supervisory Committee and ongoing Supreme Court case.

Legal experts pointed out a clause under the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal order and advised the CM to seek Modi’s intervention. They also told the State government to put pressure on the Centre to despatch an expert team to study the “fast depleting water-level” in the Cauvery basin reservoirs in Karnataka, due to the Supreme Court order to release of 12,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu till September 20.

KPCC president Dinesh Gundu Rao said Modi should intervene to resolve the issue. “The PM is more busy in tweeting rather than responding to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s appeal to convene a meeting of all States concerned to find out an amicable solution,” Rao quipped. “So far, the CM has written eight letters to the Prime Minister, for which there has been no response, let alone an acknowledgement. This has given a feeling that Modi is pursuing the agenda of making the country ‘Congress-mukth Bharath’ by not coming to the aid of Congress-ruled Karnataka.”

Karnataka BJP head BS Yeddyurappa said the CM’s request for the Prime Minister’s intervention to resolve the Cauvery water row is an “escapist move”.

Letter to Jayalalithaa Meanwhile, on Thursday, Siddaramaiah wrote another letter to his Tamil Nadu counterpart.

“While the issue of Cauvery water sharing is being adjudicated by the courts and looked into by the Cauvery Supervisory Committee, no benefit can be had by anybody through bandh and agitations,” he said. “I am deeply concerned that certain organisations have called for a bandh in Tamil Nadu tomorrow. You would appreciate that any escalation of animosity between two States would be to the collective detrimental of both the States.”

Violence unfortunately erupted on September 12 in Karnataka despite all the precautions taken by the State government, he added. However, the situation was brought under control within hours.

Rebuke from apex court PTI reports that the Supreme Court on Thursday slammed the Tamil Nadu and Karnataka governments for their failure to stop people from taking to the agitation path after its order on Cauvery river water sharing and said it hoped both States will maintain peace and respect for law.

When told about a shutdown and a ‘rail roko’ stir in Karnataka on Thursday and another bandh on Friday in Tamil Nadu, a Bench of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit said the agitations could not be allowed pursuant to the apex court orders.

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