Would the Cauvery issue have taken a completely different turn if Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar had stuck to his guns and not released water to Tamil Nadu as he had planned? Insiders who were part of the all party meeting said that the Hubli leader and now chief minister, had told his party colleagues and rivals from other parties that he was planning to court arrest rather than release water to TN.
But perhaps aware that the little known Shettar would then emerge as a ‘statesman’ and be feted in the Cauvery basin, something that none of the CMs from the basin including S.M. Krishna, H.D. Kumaraswamy, Deve Gowda or B.S. Yeddyurappa would have liked, given the political mileage he would have gained, he was stopped in his tracks by political bigwigs cutting across party lines. They would have to live with the fact that with this one masterstroke, a second-rung leader in the BJP from North Karnataka would become a cult figure in the Cauvery basin.
“He had made up his mind not to release water and was prepared to go to jail for the people of Cauvery basin. A calculated but risky proposition that would have made him a hero overnight. But, Shettar finally acceded to the pulls and pressure of veteran leaders from the state,” an insider said.