Cauvery water: Tamil Nadu says centre soft on Karnataka

New Delhi: Since Karnataka is heading for assembly elections in 2013, the central government may not be pushing it hard to release Cauvery water for Tamil Nadu, the Supreme Court was told by a counsel on Monday.

"Karnataka elections are there. No direction will be given (to Karnataka to release water to Tamil Nadu)," Tamil Nadu's senior counsel C.S. Vaidyanathan told the apex court bench of Justice D.K. Jain and Justice Madan B. Lokur.

The court is hearing a batch of petitions and application filed by Karnataka and Tamil Nadu on the release of 9,000 cusecs of water daily from Cauvery for the latter.

The Cauvery River Authority (CRA) headed by the prime minister in an interim award on September 19 directed Karnataka to release for Tamil Nadu 9,000 cusecs of Cauvery water every day.

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