Bangalore: A day after the Supreme Court chastised his government on Cauvery issue,
ministerial colleagues of Chief Minister S M Krishna on October 25 expressed
solidarity with him and said they stood by him for all the decisions adopted on
Cauvery river water row with Tamil Nadu.
Throwing their lot behind Krishna, who was severely criticised by the Court on
October 24, the ministers at a meeting held at the residence of Cooperation Minister
D K Shivakumar appealed to the Congress high command to support the Chief Minister at
this "hour of crisis".
Briefing the press, Minister for Housing Sagir Ahmed dismissed as "rumours"
speculations that Krishna has offered to quit, saying, "We have not heard anything on
this".
He said the decision not to release water to Tamil Nadu to protect the interest of
farmers of the Cauvery basin was not an individual decision of the Chief Minister,
but that of the entire Cabinet.
When asked how the ministers would react if the party high command asked Krishna to
relinquish the post, he said, "It is left to the party high command", but hastened to
add
that "no such thing has happened now".
"We are solidly with him (Krishna)", Ministers Qamur-ul-Islam and Vasanth Salian said
after the hurriedly called meeting, attended by several ministers.
Meanwhile, Minister for Public Works and a senior leader of the Party N Dharam Singh
declared that all the ministers were with Krishna.
Singh, who did not participate in the meeting said, he had communicated that he will
not attend, but expressed solidarity with Krishna's leadership.
PTI
