Members of various Kannada organisations led by Vatal Nagaraj, president of the Kannada Chaluvali Vatal Paksha and Sa.Ra. Govind, president of the Dr. Rajkumar Abhimani Sangha, took out a padayatra to the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border at Punajanoor near here on Tuesday protesting the “adamant attitude of the Tamil Nadu government in demanding Cauvery waters from the State and the repeated injustice caused to Karnataka in this issue.”
The agitators gathered in front of the Chamarajeshwara Temple raising slogans against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa.
Addressing the gathering, Mr. Vatal Nagaraj said that Karnataka faced trouble in this issue whenever Ms. Jayalalithaa was in power. He also sought to know how water was being released to Tamil Nadu when there was no water in the reservoirs in the Cauvery basin in Karnataka.
Demanding Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention in solving the row, Mr. Vatal Nagaraj said that the former should convene a meeting of the Chief Ministers of both the States and discuss the matter. He said that the Union Ministers from the State should put pressure on Mr. Modi in this regard. He also said that the MPs from Karnataka should resign resign en masse on the Cauvery issue. Meanwhile, Mr. Vatal Nagaraj and others were detained at Chikkahole check post and later released.
