Members of an organisation, led by pro-Kannada activist Vatal Nagaraj, staged a ‘Raj Bhavan Gherao’ protest on Wednesday over the Cauvery water-sharing issue. The protest against a directive of the Cauvery Water Management Board, asking the Karnataka government to share its waters with neighbouring Tamil Nadu, was held in the state capital, Bengaluru.Speaking to reporters during the protest, Nagaraj said, “The Karnataka government is silent on the Cauvery issue. It is afraid that the (MK) Stalin government in Tamil Nadu might pull the DMK out of the INDIA bloc and has, hence, agreed to release Cauvery waters to the neighbouring state.”
“If this government keeps releasing the waters this way, the people of Bengaluru would soon go dry and farmers, too, would run out of water for irrigating their fields. We demand that the release of Cauvery waters to Tamil Nadu be stopped at the earliest,” he said. Meanwhile, DMK leader TKS Elangovan said Karnataka has to release waters from the Cauvery as no state can claim sole ownership of a river.