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Sunday, Jun 13, 2004

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Parties sink differences, join hands on SYL

By Our Staff Correspondent

CHANDIGARH, JUNE 12. The Punjab Chief Minister, Amarinder Singh, today received a major boost when the Akali factions of all hues along with other political parties extended support to his Government to take "appropriate'' legal and political steps to safeguard the State's rights in the wake of the recent judgment by the Supreme Court on the construction of the long-pending Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal.

The support came through a unanimous resolution passed by leaders of major political parties, including the Akali faction led by the former Chief Minister, Parkash Singh Badal, at an all-party meet convened by the State Government on the river waters' issue here. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), was conspicuous by it absence.

Later, addressing a Press conference, Capt. Amarinder Singh released a copy of the resolution adopted by the meeting, which noted with concern that Punjab -- a riparian basin State was being unjustly deprived of its right to use the Ravi-Beas waters by their transfer to the Yamuna basin areas of Haryana, which was a non-riparian State.

The resolution also observed that providing water to one set of farmers by depriving the other, is neither going to help, nor serve any national cause. It will, however, surely add to the woes of the Punjab farmers. The participants urged upon the government to take all possible administrative and legal measures to safeguard the State's interests.

Expressing satisfaction over the unity expressed by the various political parties, Capt. Singh appeared in an extremely non-confrontationist posture. He said he would lead an all-party delegation to the Prime Minister to apprise him of the situation developing in the State. He also revealed the plans of the State Government to launch a nation wide media campaign to erase the impression that Punjab was behaving as a villain, despite being handed out injustice.

The Chief Minister expressed confidence that legal recourse was available with the State. Initially, he said, the government would seek redress through a review petition, which could be followed by a curative plea. He countered allegations that the State Government had in a petition, disposed off recently by the Supreme Court, contested the validity of section 78 of the Punjab Re-organisation Act of 1966 that provided powers to the Centre to adjudicate on river waters, which was a State subject.

Earlier, secretaries of the state units of both the Left parties, CPI and CPI (M), Joginder Dayal and Balwant Singh, cautioned the various Akalis against adopting extreme hard positions and resorting to unnecessary political rhetoric. They favoured a resolution of the crisis under the ambit of the Rajiv-Longowal agreement of 1985. However, the leader of an Akali faction and former Speaker of the Punjab assembly, Ravi Inder Singh, said the agreement had no legal or legislative authority.

The Chief Minister checked Mr. Badal and appealed to other Akali leaders to avoid futile exercises of making counter allegations. Most of the five Akali factions, emphasised the need to scrap all previous inter-State agreements on river waters as they were against the internationally accepted Riparian Principle.

The president of the Akali Dal (Amritsar), Simranjit Singh Mann, who later announced that his party did not agree with the resolution adopted, charged that like the Congress, the traditional Akali leadership had always betrayed the Punjabis and the Sikhs. He demanded a clear stand of all participating parties on the issue of interlinking of the rivers. Mr. Mann had a bitter verbal duel with former Union Minister, Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa.

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