State has not a drop of water to spare: Cheema

CHANDIGARH: A day after AAP MP Sushil Gupta promised SYL canal water to every village in Haryana if the party comes to power there, Punjab finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema said that not even a single drop of state’s water will be allowed to flow out to any other state.

In a video message, Cheema said that Punjab has the sole right over its waters. “We are ready to make any sacrifice to safeguard the riparian rights our state,” he said, accusing the traditional parties of doing politics on this sensitive issue.

Gupta’s statement has kicked up a political storm in Punjab with opposition Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) expressing apprehensions about the AAP’s dubious intentions. The two parties also asked the AAP and chief minister Bhagwant Mann to make clear their stand on Gupta’s statement that is detrimental to Punjab’s interests on river waters. Punjab and Haryana have been locked in a dispute over the sharing of the Ravi-Beas waters for decades.

Don’t play politics on SYL canal: Sukhbir to Kejriwal

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Wednesday asked Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal not to play politics on the sensitive issue of Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal. He suggested Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann to urge his party’s convener to withdraw the guarantee given on the issue to the people of Haryana.

Talking to the media at Gurdwara Rakabganj in Delhi, the SAD chief said the AAP had again started befooling Punjabis. Punjab finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema has now announced that the state’s waters would not flow into Haryana, even as a Rajya Sabha MP belonging to AAP had given a guarantee on behalf of Kejriwal in Haryana that water from the SYL canal would irrigate each and every field in the state.

“The conduct of the AAP had the potential to inflame sentiments in the entire region, and the silence maintained by Bhagwant Mann on the matter was being read as a weakness by Punjabis,” said Sukhbir, adding that it seems Mann knows the real intentions of Kejriwal, which the latter has made public earlier also by filing an affidavit in the Supreme Court demanding water be released to Haryana and Delhi through the SYL canal.

If Mann does not ask Kejriwal to withdraw the guarantee given Haryana, he should be prepared to face the anger of Punjabis who will not allow one drop of water to flow into Haryana from the canal, said Sukhbir.