Badals fighting against whom on river waters issue ?
By Satinder Bains
CHANDIGARH: An interesting and uncanny political scene is emerging in Punjab where the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son Deputy Chief Minister and SAD President Sukhbir Singh Badal have launched a political offensive against construction of Satluj Yamuna Link(SYL) canal.
One wants to know against whom the SAD-BJP government in Punjab aimed to fight on the issue. Is it Congress or the BJP which rules in Haryana and an alley of SAD in Punjab and in the center government. BJP surprisingly has three different stands and three different stages. In Punjab BJP is with SAD, in Haryana it is against SAD and at center it stands with Haryana.
The exact position of BJP is 'Running with the hare and hunting with the hounds'. The SAD and BJP leadership is finding a convinient political position to use the issue of river waters dispute in the 2017 assembly elections and in future course. They seems trying to further complicate and prolong the issue of sharing of river waters with neighbouring states. The SAD-BJP government has today passed a resolution to demand royality from Rajasthan and 'other' states getting water from Punjab. Here the 'other' states could only mean Haryana.
A resolution in this regard was passed today by the Punjab Vidhan Sabha by SAD and BJP MLAs (Congress abstained from special session). Punjab has demanded Rs.80, 000 from Rajasthan, another BJP ruled state. The resolution recommend to the Punjab government to take up issue of charging royalty on waters flowing to non-Riparian states to neghbouting states.Is SAD-BJP preparing ground to allow water to flow to Haryana against royality?
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The SAD so far seemed side stepping the issue of its conflict with Haryana and Center Governments and instead making it a case of Punjab versus Congress blaming the latter for allowing construction of SYL Canal and betraying the people of Punjab. In the media campaign on the issue, the fact that BJP is ruling party in Punjab, Haryana and at center is side tracked for political convinience.
Neither BJP leaders of Punjab and Center have came forward to resolve the issue at political level. To the contrary, the BJP government in Haryana tried to build a 'false' atmosphere of confrontation with Punjab to give electoral benefit to the SAD-BJP alliance. The BJP Government in Haryana stopped the bus service to Punjab and Khaps issued threat to block the highway for people of Punjab. Punjab government on its part deployed para-militay forces on the border with Haryana which was unwarranted.
The fact is that Supreme Court has not yet delivered any judgement but gave its advice to the Presidential reference which the President sought on a petition filed by Haryana Government to the Cebter Government. The final decision would be taken by the president who may or may not
consider the advice of the Supreme Court bench. The Supreme Court in its earlier orders had given the responsibility of construction of Canal to Center Government.
It is intriguing that why SAD did'nt snap ties with BJP and withdrew its minister (Harsimrat Kaur Badal) from the center government in protest against Modi government's stand in favour of Haryana in the Supreme Court? Even SAD leadership approached BJP leaders to resolve the issue at piolitical level.
The SAD-BJP government has very cleverly made a case of demanding royality from neighbourign states for the water given by it. It could be a political conspiracy of ruling alliance to allow construction of SYL Canal if Haryana agrees to pay the royality. Justice Nirmal Singh SAD MLA who seconded the resolution moved by BJP minister Madan Mohan Mittal quotes clause from 1955 agreement on river waters for payment of royality on water to reparian state.
The resolution passed by SAD and BJP legislatures is also seen as shift in the earlier stand of SAD-BJP government from "not allowing a drop of water to other states" to "charging royality from other states for water given to them"? Never in the past the state government had demanded royality from Rajasthan and no such resolution was passed by SAD-BJP government in the past ten years of governance or during previous governments.
In any case neither Rajasthan had ever paid royality to Punjab and nor Haryana would do so. At the most it would become another point of conflict and legal battle between Punjab and Haryana.