Naidu takes Babli to Delhi

Ahead of the all-party delegation meeting with the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, on the Babli project, the TD president, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, is meeting national leaders to take up cudgels against the Maharashtra government.

Mr Naidu highlighted the treatment meted out to him by the Maharashtra government and questioned the silence and indifference of the Centre to the issue in his meetings with leaders of other parties.

Mr Naidu demanded a national debate on the issue of sharing river waters between states. He said the lower riparian states were completely at the mercy of the upper riparian states which were taking advantage of their location.Mr Naidu also slammed the Rosaiah government for being “weak”. He questioned the intention of the Centre in dealing with what he called violation of the Supreme Court order by the Maharashtra government.

Mr Naidu said the Centre has the right to intervene in a conflict between two states. He cited the example of the Cauvery dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka that was mediated by the Centre during the tenure of P.V. Narasimha Rao. Mr Naidu emphasised that it would be easy for the Centre to resolve this row over Babli as both the states and the Centre are being governed by the Congress.

Mr Naidu said the Maharashtra government had violated the agreement between the two Chief Ministers, the Supreme Court (interim) order which had restrained Maharashtra from installing gates in the barrage and the Central Water Commission order asking Maharashtra to maintain status quo until the technical committee submitted its report.

Quoting from the Constitution, Mr Naidu that anybody can visit any part of the country but he was forcibly prevented by Maharashtra from visiting the Babli project site.