New Delhi, February 14
Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting M.H. Ambareesh has resigned from the government in protest against the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal award.
The resignation may prove to be a minor
embarrassment for the Congress-led UPA government though it poses no threat to the stability of the coalition arrangement at the Centre.
He sent his papers to the Prime Minister today, members his family said from Bangalore. They said he sent his resignation to Congress president Sonia Gandhi as well.
Mr Ambareesh was unavailable as he was not at his residence in the Karnataka capital. He believed that the tribunal’s award had not been fair and just in respect of his home state.
A third-time member of the Lok Sabha representing the Mandya constituency, Mr Ambareesh was inducted into the Union council of ministers by the Prime Minister in October last.
He also sent his resignation
from the Lok Sabha to Speaker Somnath Chatterjee.
The Speaker was unlikely to accept the resignation till it was personally handed over to him.
Had Mr Ambareesh merely resigned from the government without giving up the Lok Sabha seat, it might not have had the desired impact in Karnataka.
There was a distinct possibility of Mr Ambareesh, a superstar of the Kannada film industry, weighing his options of remaining in the Congress in the prevailing scenario following the tribunal’s award.
The Prime Minister’s office said it had no comments to offer if Mr Ambareesh had tendered his resignation from the government.
Karnataka Chief Minister K. Kumaraswamy proposed to have a meeting with the Prime Minister to take up the issue of the tribunal’s award on the distribution of the Cauvery waters.
Ever since the award had been made public after a wait of nearly two decades, there had been agitations and bandhs in Bangalore and other parts of Karnataka against the tribunal’s award.
