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Bangalore, Feb 11 (IANS) Karnataka Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar Monday ticked off the Congress and Janata Dal-Secular for demanding his resignation for releasing Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu and said he was ready to do so if that was a solution to the row. Shettar said resigning as chief minister or disobeying the Supreme Court order to release water and going to jail for contempt of court were not the solution to the Cauvery dispute. He was responding to state assembly developments where the members of the two opposition parties accused him of "betraying" the people by going back on his word not to release water to Tamil Nadu. The chief minister said the government had to follow the Supreme Court order (of Feb 7) to release 2.44 tmc (thousand million cubic) feet of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu to save standing crops in that state. Karnataka is releasing the water since Saturday. His response did not satisfy the Congress and Janata Dal-Secular members who staged a walkout from the house. Slamming the Shettar government for releasing water, leader of the opposition, Siddaramaiah of Congress, said that Bangalore, Mysore and other areas in the Cauvery delta would face severe drinking water shortage in the summer.
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