Politicos fishing in troubled waters of Krishna

Vijayawada: The second-half of this week will see political leaders view with one another to score brownie points on the Brijesh Kumar Tribunal verdict.

They will highlight the injustice meted out to the State in respect of Krishna waters. They will explain how Krishna water flow would dry up, turning the Krishna delta into a desert.

Opposition Telugu Desam is ahead in the race in picking up the water issue and using it to reach out to the masses. The party has already held two rounds of road blockade protests at Hanuman Junction on Chennai-Kolkata Highway and at Gollapudi on Hyderabad-Machilipatnam highway.

It is now holding a massive protest at the historical Prakasam Barrage on Wednesday, in which the party chief N Chandrababu Naidu will participate. This is for the second time this year that Naidu is participating in a dharna in the city. He had earlier participated in a sit-in in the city, demanding construction of a flyover at Kanakadurga temple to ease the traffic flow.

Naidu's presence at the dharna may not change the Brijesh Tribunal allocations, but is likely to rally the farming community on the implications of the Tribunal verdict which ignored the lower riparian rights of the State ' which suffers inundation during floods and goes dry in the normal season.

It was for this reason that the Bachawat Tribunal had authorised the State to use surplus waters to balance floods and dry spell scenarios.

However, this time AP was denied this lower riparian right, and the surplus water is to be distributed among the three States. The TD is taking up the issue in the hope that it would help the party win the hearts of farmers and farm labourers in the region.

However, even as Naidu will be staging a dharna at Prakasam Barrage, YSR Congress Party honorary president Y S Vijayamma will be staging a similar protest at the Pulichintala Project to register the party's protest against the skewed allocation of Krishna water.

The party will use the occasion to blunt the attack by the TDP against YSR over the projects issue. It will also point an accusing finger at the ruling party for its failure to effectively present the state's case at the Tribunal.

YSRCP will set the issue right over a letter reportedly given by the Rajasekhara Reddy government to the Brijesh Tribunal. TDP is alleging that the YSR government surrendered the state's rights on the river water. On its part, the ruling party has also entered the race.

Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy is set to dedicate the Pulichintala Project to the nation on December 7. He is likely to unveil the plaque at the project on the Guntur side and address a public meeting in Vijayawada.

The Congress, while discounting the charges of the TD and the YSR Congress on the Tribunal, is aiming to win over the farmers by assuring them that they would get the water for the next Kharif season, a long pending demand of the delta farmers.