Reddy, Naidu engage in verbal duel over water sharing issues

Hyderabad, July 12: Noisy scenes were witnessed in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly Thursday over water sharing issues with Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy asking Leader of Opposition N Chandrababu Naidu whether he was "rearing donkeys" when Telangana was building Kaleshwaram irrigation project.

As the Telugu Desam Party raised objection to his remark against their leader, he sought to clarify it was only a colloquial proverb and there was nothing wrong with its usage.

At the same time, Jagan heaped praise on Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao for being magnanimous towards Andhra Pradesh in agreeing to share Godavari river waters that would help stabilise huge ayacut under Krishna.

The Question Hour, on the first day of the Budget session that began here Thursday, witnessed noisy scenes, as the ruling YSR Congress and the opposition TDP members engaged in a verbal duel over the issue of sharing of inter-state river waters.

In a sharp attack on Chandrababu Naidu, Jagan said as Chief Minister, the former could not prevent the construction of either Almatti dam in Karnataka or Kaleshwaram in Telangana.

"It is a bare fact that we can do nothing about what the upper riparian states do. We may raise a hue and cry and file cases in court but the litigation will never end.

"Cordiality between states is the key and KCR (Rao) showed magnanimity in this," the Chief Minister noted.

Reeling out statistics, Jagan said on an average 1100-1200 TMC feet of water flowed downstream from the upper riparian states (Maharashtra and Karnataka) in river Krishna in 47 years but it fell to just about 500-600 TMC feet in the last decade.

Chandrababu Naidu lashed out at Reddy, saying, "Your age is almost equal to my (political) experience. This is a sensitive issue and hasty decisions are not good."