With Karnataka's reservoirs straining under an El Niño-driven drought and the perennial standoff over Cauvery releases flaring once again, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah took the floor at an all-party meeting in Bengaluru on 2 August 2026 — and delivered a blunt, methodical case for why the state cannot keep firefighting the same crisis every monsoon season.

What Siddaramaiah said at the all-party meeting

The meeting, chaired by Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, was convened as rainfall deficits tightened pressure on the basin. Siddaramaiah noted that such all-party conclaves on Cauvery have been called 25 times in 76 years — twice during his own 2013–2018 tenure as Chief Minister. The ritual, he implied, is a sign of institutional failure, not statecraft.

He reported that while the Kabini and Harangi reservoirs are currently full and KRS Dam holds water in storage, the broader monsoon picture is grim. El Niño conditions have produced drought across Karnataka, and the state needs to reserve water for drinking purposes before any agricultural releases can be considered. He put the drinking-water reserve requirement at 40 TMC.

The allegation Siddaramaiah rejected — and why it matters

At the heart of the meeting was a charge circulating in political circles: that the Karnataka government has been releasing water to Tamil Nadu covertly, bypassing public accountability. Siddaramaiah dismissed this flatly. 'This is false,' he said. 'We can only give water to Tamil Nadu when we have it. But when the Cauvery Water Management Authority issues an order, we are legally bound to comply.'

That legal bind is the crux. The CWMA, constituted in June 2018 following the Supreme Court's modification of the 2007 Cauvery Disputes Tribunal award, holds statutory authority over seasonal releases. Karnataka cannot simply refuse — and Siddaramaiah acknowledged as much, while warning that approaching the Supreme Court for relief would likely prove futile, citing past petitions that were dismissed.

The distress formula Karnataka is pushing for

Siddaramaiah's sharpest demand was structural: a permanent, scientific distress-sharing formula that spells out exactly how the four basin states — Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry — divide Cauvery water during deficient monsoons. The current framework, he argued, was built for normal years. It has no durable mechanism for drought seasons, which is why the same crisis resurfaces year after year.

He called on either the Central Government or the Supreme Court to frame such a formula urgently. Until then, he said, the state must immediately provide water to standing crops where reservoir levels permit — particularly from the full Kabini and Harangi storages — and distribute crop compensation to farmers whose fields cannot be irrigated this season.

The Cauvery dispute has dogged Karnataka governments for decades, generating political heat that cuts across party lines every time the southwest monsoon underperforms. Siddaramaiah's call for a scientific resolution is not new — but the combination of an active drought year, full upstream reservoirs, and an all-party platform gives it unusual urgency. If the Centre and the court do not act, the next deficient monsoon will call the same meeting, with the same speeches, and the same farmers waiting.