Mahanadi Water Issue: Congress MLAs To Meet President

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Congress legislators led by Leader of Opposition Narasingh Mishra on Thursday left for New Delhi to apprise President of India Pranab Mukherjee of the ongoing Mahanadi water sharing dispute with neighboring Chhattisgarh.

The Congress MLAs would seek the intervention of the President to protect the interest of the state.

“We’re going to meet the President in the evening on Thursday. The delegation of 16 Congress MLAs will submit a memorandum to him seeking protection of Odisha’s interest on Mahanadi river. We’ll urge him to intervene into the issue or else it would have far-reaching consequences as over 60% Odisha population would be adversely affected,” said Mishra before leaving Bhubaneswar.

“I’ve already told in the Assembly that the Chief Minister is unable to do anything for protecting Odisha’s interest. It has already been proved earlier when Kolkata port was about to engulf Odisha’s seven seaports, the CM simply sat pretty by writing only letters. We had protected then,” said the Leader of Opposition.

Senior Congress MLA Prafulla Majhi said the leaders are hopeful that the President would intervene into the matter and ensure that the unilateral constructions of Chhattisgarh government are stopped.

“Odisha Government is only resorting to political drama. On the contrary, the people of Odisha are going to pay a heavy price for it. We had been to the ground zero. Most of the projects have been completed and nearing completion while the Odisha Government, having three offices of its Water Resources Department, couldn’t have an inkling of it,” said Congress MLA Naba Kishore Das.