Cong, INLD slam Punjab govt for stopping Haryana’s share of water

Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Friday slammed the Aam Aadmi government in Punjab for violating a long-standing water-sharing agreement and termed the Bhagwant Mann’s government move unconstitutional, immoral and inhuman.

Addressing a press conference here, Hooda said that the Punjab government has attacked the federal structure by stopping Haryana’s share of water from the Bhakra Nangal Dam.

“We are not begging for water but asking to release our share of water. The state government should call a special session of the assembly after conducting an all-party meeting on the issue of water sharing. It is the need of the hour to mount pressure on the Punjab government to release our share of water so that the water crisis can be tackled in the state,” the former chief minister added.

The former chief minister alleged that the BJP government has failed to provide the state’s share of water to Haryana residents.

“We raised this issue several times, but the Haryana BJP government never paid attention to the water sharing issue. During my tenure, Haryana got its full share of water and there were three members, including a senior Haryana official from irrigation department in the Bhakra Beas Management Board. But now, there is no official from Haryana, and BJP never paid attention to it and now there is no one on the board to advocate for our rights,” Hooda added.

The former chief minister pointed out that the superintendent engineer in the board should be from Haryana as per rules, but this appointment was not done during the BJP government. “When the people of Haryana are not on the board, then who will talk about our rights,” he added.

The former chief minister said that despite the Supreme court’s verdict on the Satluj-Yamuna link (SYL) canal, the state government has failed to get water from it.

“Even though the BJP government is in power at both the state and the Centre, it maintained silence on SYL. Projects like SYL and Dadupur Nalvi were razed to the ground during the BJP tenure,” he pointed out.

Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) supremo Abhay Singh Chautala urged the centre to intervene into the matter and termed Punjab government’s move to deploy cops at Bhakra Nangal Dam an attack on the federal structure of the constitution.