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Friday, Jul 23, 2004

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Chautala dares Congress MPs to quit

By Our Special Correspondent

CHANDIGARH, JULY 22. The Haryana Chief Minister, Om Prakash Chautala, today annnounced that five Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) Members of Parliament would resign from Rajya Sabha in case 15 Congress MPs from Haryana and Rajasthan also "resigned'' from the Lok Sabha to mount pressure on the Centre to implement the Supreme Court verdict for construction of the remaining portion of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal.

Talking to the Press at Yamunanagar, Mr. Chautala reiterated that the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act-2004 had adversely affected the interests of Haryana and Rajasthan but it was sad that the Congress MPs of both the States were now shedding crocodile tears on this issue.

The Congress, he alleged, had misled the people of Haryana by issuing an irresponsible ultimatum in which it had pressed upon his Government to go to court within 72 hours or else the party MLAs would submit their resignations to the Speaker. Taking a dig at the Congress MLAs, he said if they were serious they should have submitted their resignations to the Speaker and not the PCC president. "It appears they want to cling to their seats," he said.

He said since the issue was directly related to the Central Government and any decision in this regard was to be taken by it, the Congress MPs should resign from their posts to impress upon the Centre to work in a positive manner for the construction of the canal. Moreover, the two Central Ministers from Haryana "had not said a word against the Congress Government in Punjab, which was a matter of shame for them,'' he added.

Lamenting that the Centre was indulging in delay tactics deliberately, Mr. Chautala said the appeal made by it to the Supreme Court was also a mere pretence.

The Supreme Court had already given its verdict in favour of Haryana, but still the Union Government continued to ask for further directions on the situation created by the Punjab Government, which seemed to be an eye wash.

Mr. Chautala asserted that this issue was not simply regarding distribution of water but had assumed greater proportions.

Later, Mr. Chautala dedicated to the State two power generating units at the hydel project, Yamunanagar with installed capacity of 7.2 MW each under stage-II. These would generate 640 lakh units of power in the grid every year.

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