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Apex court is our last resort: Jayalalithaa

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI Aug. 21. Even as the Cauvery River Authority is meeting on August 27 to sort out the water row, the Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, today said the Supreme Court was the ``last resort'' for Tamil Nadu in ending the Cauvery impasse and hoped that it would be ``firm'' on the issue.

Making it clear that she was attending the meeting of the CRA, headed by the Prime Minister, only following a directive from the apex court, Ms. Jayalalithaa said Karnataka had not made weekly release of water as stipulated under the interim award of the Cauvery Tribunal.

``Only excess water (from the Kabini reservoir) was reaching Mettur. This is not the water released by Karnataka. If it is possible for them to hold the excess water, they will not allow the surplusses too to flow into Tamil Nadu,'' she said, commenting on the recent inflows into the Mettur reservoir.

Asked whether the dam would be opened for samba irrigation, the Chief Minister said a decision would be taken after assessing the situation.

(Terming the CRA ``toothless'', the Tamil Nadu Government had approached the court for a direction to Karnataka to release to Tamil Nadu its due share of water and decided to boycott the meeting of the Authority. However, the court asked all CRA constituents comprising the Chief Ministers of the four riparian States to meet soon to sort out the issue. Accordingly, the Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary attended the meeting of the Cauvery Monitoring Committee of the Authority on August 9).

The Chief Minister dismissed as a "dead issue" the row between Rajnikant, and the PMK leader, S. Ramadoss, over the actor's latest movie, ``Baba''. Asked whether violence over a film augured well for Tamil Nadu, she said: ``The violence has been well contained.''

To another question, Ms. Jayalalithaa said she had received a reply to her letter to the Prime Minister demanding the ouster of the MDMK Minister, M.Kannappan, from the Union Cabinet.

The reply, stated the Prime Minister was in receipt of ``my letter''.

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