PANAJI
A group of non-governmental organisations have come together to deliberate on the Chief Minister's letter to Karnataka opposition leader B S Yeddyurappa and has resolved to give flight to the issue by organising corner meetings all across Goa over the letter which they said is "contrary to the stand taken by the State before the tribunal."
Speaking to the media, Adv S N Joshi said that the State government has maintained a consistent stand up to now until Parrikar's letter which Joshi said that the wording "would not oppose... demand for drinking water" was against the State's interest.
"The letter is contrary to the stand taken by the Chief Minister in 2012 when he had said that he would not listen to his party's national leaders on the issue. Even former chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar had said that there will be no compromise and since the issue, if before the tribunal, there will be no compromise," Joshi said.
The meeting which saw leaders from various organizations take part resolved that the Chief Minister should "withdraw his letter which he had written on December 21 to Yeddyurappa forthwith".
"The Goa government should wait for the tribunal verdict, which we hear is now in the final stages of hearing. What was the tearing hurry to go and compromise the issue especially when the case is at this stage? We have heard that one of the judges has already begun drafting his judgement," Joshi said.
The meeting also called on all political parties to make their stand clear on the Mhadei issue through a public statement while also calling on all 40 MLAs to similarly come clean on what their stand is.
The group also called on the MLAs to pass a resolution in the Legislative Assembly "unanimously" that "no water will be made available for Karnataka."
Besides the ‘corner meetings' the first set of which will be held between January 6 and 16, the group has said that they will work with local bodies to ensure that gram sabhas across the state pass resolutions that there be no compromise on the issue especially since it comes solely for the purpose of the BJP's prospects at the upcoming Karnataka elections.
Prominent among those present at the meeting were Dr Dattaram Desai, Swati Kerkar, Sagar Jawadekar, Rajan Ghate and others.
