Cauvery pact unacceptable: Cong MP

He said that Karnataka’s struggle for the last seven years had been to protest against the “obnoxious” clause of the interim order which limited the State’s irrigated area in the Cauvery basin to 11.2 lakh acres.

It had also held that no authority was needed to monitor the reservoirs in the State. Krishna said that he was shocked to find that the scheme made no concession to Karnataka on these points.

Chief Minister J H Patel had given an impression that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and his aides had made some assurances that the authority wouldprotect the State’s interests.

"While I have no reason to doubt their sincerity, the future of the people of Karnataka cannot hinge on these informal backroom assurances made by the Prime Minister of the day and his advisors," he said.

Krishna, who hails from the Cauvery basin, felt that there should at least have been a memorandum of understanding on the assurances so that successive chief ministers and prime ministers could abide the spirit of such an MoU. "On vital issues you just cannot afford to be vague," he said.

He pointed out that an impression was given that the authority would take decisions by consensus. But that had not been spelt out in the scheme, he said.

Asked what would be Karnataka’s image if it rejected the scheme now, he remarked: "It is a question of self-interest. It doesn’t depend on the goodwill that we can generate in the country. Today, Tamil Nadu has achieved what it wanted — that Karnataka agree to the implementation of the interim order."