With Karnataka expressing its inability to continue releasing water from the Cauvery river, BJP's Rajya Sabha MP Lahar Singh Siroya has urged Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin to discuss the issue with his Karnataka counterpart Siddaramaiah.
Mr Siroya's letter comes in the backdrop of an emergency meet called by the Cauvery Water Monitoring Authority (CWMA) in New Delhi on Monday to discuss the way forward in water sharing in this distress year.
Though the Congress and the DMK are part of the INDIA alliance and the two Chief Ministers met each other during the alliance's recent Bengaluru meeting, they have not had an official meeting on water-sharing.
In his letter to Mr Stalin, Mr Siroya urged "Tamil Nadu to realise that Karnataka's water needs include the water needs of lakhs of Tamil speakers who work and live in Karnataka."
"We live in a migrant society. Inter-state migration when people leave their home states for employment reasons is a trend that has picked up in the last couple of decades. Therefore, when we speak of water rights, we have to be more considerate keeping these migratory trends and realities in mind," the letter stated.
"The best solution for this distress situation is for both states like brothers to understand each other's needs and crisis and share whatever limited water is available equitably. This can happen only if the Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka meet and discuss the situation," it added.
A deficient monsoon has led to very low storage in Karnataka's reservoirs.
Though the state has been releasing 5,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu over the last few days in compliance with CWMA's orders, it has now expressed its inability to continue with this.
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