Krishna waters dissolve party lines in LS, for a while

It was only when Naidu mentioned Congress chief Sonia Gandhi’s name that Congress members arose in protest, asking him to seek the help of BJP president Venkaiah Naidu, also from Andhra Pradesh. Yerran Naidu had said that TDP had sought an appointment with Sonia Gandhi to talk about the issue but it was not granted to them.

Taunting the TDP for failing to get the Centre to intervene, Janardhan Reddy said the party should rethink its support of 29 MPs to the Centre. Water Resources Minister Arjun Charan Sethi said the second Krishna Tribunal would be set up soon. ‘‘We had one year’s time and it’s not over yet,’’ he said.

Initiating the discussion on the issue under Rule 193, Yerran Naidu said people and farmers in AP were suffering due to lack of water. He said Karnataka had violated norms by constructing illegal projects, and that Sonia should have intervened since it is a Congress government in Karnataka.

Reacting sharply, Congress leader Shivraj Patil said the TDP was politicising the issue. ‘‘This is a matter being looked after by the Central Water Commission, the Supreme Court and the Government of India. By bringing in Sonia, they want to cover up for their inefficiency,’’ he said.

Yerran asked the government to send a high-level team to Karnataka to find out the status of projects which were leading to water shortage in Andhra. He demanded that all illegal projects by Karnataka be stopped. Jalappa accused Andhra of utilising water for irrigation instead of drinking purposes. Dhananjay Kumar asked the TDP that it should not have raised this issue under Rule 193 in Parliament. ‘‘There is an existing mechanism to sort out such matters. The Inter-State River Dispute Act, the CWC and the Tribunals — all these are there,’’ he said. He said the TDP should not have hurried with a debate in the House when the Centre had announced that it would set up a new tribunal soon.