As Karnataka and Tamil Nadu slug it out over the sharing of Cauvery river water, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has chosen to maintain a studied silence on this issue, except to appeal to both states to desist from violence.
Not just the prime minister, but even his cabinet colleague Uma Bharti, whose Union water resources ministry deals with the issue, is learnt to have expressed helplessness in resolving the differences between the two states on the plea that the matter is sub judice.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah met Bharti on Thursday to explain why it was difficult for his state to release 6,000 cusecs water, as directed by the Supreme Court, to Tamil Nadu. He said he has written to the prime minister, seeking his intervention and also sought an appointment with him. However, there has been no response from the Prime Minister’s Office.
The Congress cites earlier instances when successive prime ministers have stepped in to cool tensions between warring chief ministers. PV Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh had intervened when matters threatened to get out of hand, Congress leaders note. However, only Rao succeeded in hammering out a compromise. Vajpayee and Singh failed in their mission as both had to contend with a walkout by angry chief ministers.
Modi could follow the examples set by his predecessors and call both chief ministers for a meeting in an effort to end the deadlock between the warring states. But Modi has his constraints in taking such a step.
Valuable ally
As prime minister, Modi cannot be seen to be taking sides, and any compromise he proposes will eventually favour one state. At the same time, he cannot suggest any formula which does not help Karnataka, a state where the BJP is in the opposition and is hoping to win the assembly election in 2018.
On the other hand, Modi is reluctant to take up this matter with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. Modi enjoys a good rapport with the chief of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and he does not want to take up any contentious issue with her, especially when such an intervention can be avoided. He must have learnt a lesson from Vajpayee’s experience when an angry Jayalalithaa had stormed out of a meeting he had called to end the impasse over Cauvery waters.
Another reason Modi cannot afford to antagonise Jayalalithaa is that the AIADMK has proved to be a valuable ally at the Centre. The Modi government depends on Jayalalithaa’s party to bail it out each time its legislative agenda gets stuck in the Rajya Sabha, where the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies do not enjoy a majority.
In the coming year, the BJP will need the support of Jayalalithaa, who was admitted in a Chennai hospital last week, in the election of the next president. Although the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance is comfortably placed as far as the election of the vice-president is concerned, it does not have the requisite numbers to ensure that its candidate can occupy the Rashtrapati Bhavan next year.
According to BJP’s calculations, it will need the support of at least one major regional party even if it does exceedingly well in next year’s Uttar Pradesh assembly polls. According to BJP insiders, its leaders are already in touch with Jayalalithaa with regard to the president’s election, though no names have figured in the discussions. In addition, Modi is also eyeing a possible tie-up with the AIADMK in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Electoral calculations
While he has reasons to treat Jayalalithaa with kid gloves, Modi has even more compelling reasons not to take sides against Karnataka in the Cauvery dispute. The ruling Congress government in Karnataka has been lurching from one crisis to another for the past several months, while Siddaramaiah’s personal credibility is said to have hit rock bottom. Given these circumstances, the BJP is confident that it is well placed to dethrone the government and capture power in the southern state once again. The party has, therefore, chosen to keep the Centre away from this dispute.
When the Supreme Court’s first direction to Siddaramaiah on the release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu led to violent street protests, the BJP’s Karnataka unit initially refrained from taking a stand on this emotive issue. Instead, it launched a scathing attack against Siddaramaiah for his handling of the dispute and the violence which rocked the state. The BJP’s state unit was particularly dismissive about the chief minister’s letter to the prime minister seeking his intervention, stating that this was nothing but an attempt to cover up his own “incompetence”. It also accused the state government of having no strategy in place to safeguard the interests of the state.
However, the BJP had no choice but to support the chief minister when Siddaramaiah called a special assembly session to pass a resolution denying Tamil Nadu water from the Cauvery river on the plea that Karnataka had a drought year and could not spare water. The BJP could ill-afford to oppose the resolution as it would be seen to be acting against the state’s interests. When river water disputes are involved, political parties have to necessarily sink their differences and put up a united fight for their state. In this last round, Siddaramaiah did succeed in forcing the BJP to go along with the government but the Congress is unlikely to get any political mileage from this move as the damage may have already been done.
