Mahadayi issue: Congress slams Goa CM for K’taka campaign

Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant campaigning for the ruling BJP for the upcoming Karnataka Assembly elections is a matter of shame and further compromises the interests of Goa in the ongoing inter-state dispute over the waters of the Mahadayi river, Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly Yuri Alemao said on Monday.

Alemao told a press conference here that instead of exhorting voters in Karnataka to vote for the BJP, Sawant should have instead slammed the Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai for playing it unfair in the water dispute.

“The Chief Minister has compromised our interest. He has gone to Karnataka and campaigned for the Karnataka chief minister. The entire state (of Goa) has erupted (over the Mhadei issue) and they are not bothered,” Alemao said, a week after Sawant returned to Goa after addressing a series of election rallies in North and coastal Karnataka.

The political temper against Karnataka has spiked in Goa after the Central Water Commission (CWC) gave a nod to Karnataka’s Kalasa-Banduri project, which aims to divert water from the Mahadayi river to other water deficit parts of Karnataka. The Mahadayi, also known as the Mhadei and Mandovi river in Goa, is one of the two key rivers in the state.