Cong asks Punjab CM to hold all-party discussion before meeting Haryana counterpart on SYL Canal issue

Congress has asked Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to hold an all-party discussion before meeting Haryana's counterpart on the SYL Canal issue.

Chandigarh:Punjab Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring has urged Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to hold an all-party discussion on Thursday ahead of his meeting with Haryana counterpart Manohar Lal Khattar on the SYL Canal issue. Khattar and Mann will meet on Friday to discuss the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal issue. The discussion between the two chief ministers has been scheduled after the Supreme Court had recently nudged them to meet and try to find an amicable solution to water-sharing issues.

In a statement here on Wednesday, Warring assured the state government of full support of the Punjab Congress on the issue. "It is a matter of life and death for all of us in Punjab and we have to fight it together and unitedly," he said and asserted that on such issues parties in the state must have a united stand irrespective of their political differences.

Meanwhile, Congress leader and All India Kisan Congress president Sukhpal Singh Khaira cautioned CM Mann against making any compromise on the issue of SYL at the behest of his party supremo Arvind Kejriwal. "Scarcity of water and unfair pricing of crops have landed Punjab farmers under a colossal debt of Rs 1 lakh crore leading to too many suicides. Therefore, we will never allow a single drop of SYL water to flow to Haryana," Khaira said.

In a statement, Khaira claimed his apprehensions were based on Kejriwal's repeated statements suggesting that Haryana should also get water from Punjab, to which Mann did not seem to have any problem. The Congress MLA asked Mann to take a cue from the erstwhile Congress government when it repealed all the water-sharing agreements with other states in 2004 to save Punjab's precious waters.

Otherwise, he claimed, most of Punjab would go dry and turn barren. Water sharing from the SYL Canal has been a bone of contention between the two states for several decades. Punjab has been demanding a reassessment of the Ravi-Beas river waters' volume while Haryana has been seeking completion of the SYL Canal to get its share of 3.5 million acre-feet of the river waters.

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Tuesday had issued a stern warning to CM Mann "against reducing Punjab's river waters to a negotiable issue between Punjab and Haryana". Badal had said that it was shocking that the Punjab chief minister had not made the state government's stand clear before holding a meeting with his Haryana counterpart on this issue. Badal had also said that Punjab had an exclusive right over its river waters and Haryana being a non-riparian state had no locus standi in the matter. (PTI)