House resolution urges Centre to ensure SYL canal construction
The Haryana Vidhan Sabha on Monday passed a resolution urging the Centre to immediately ensure construction of Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal.
The Haryana Vidhan Sabha on Monday passed a resolution urging the Centre to immediately ensure construction of Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal.
Though trio parties — the ruling Congress and both the opposition parties namely INLD and BJP — blamed each other for over five decade delay in construction of the SYL canal, the Vidhan Sabha also resolved to now take an allparty delegation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the matter.
The resolution is based on the May 7, 2014, judgment of the constitutional bench of five judges of the Supreme Court in a case titled ‘Sstate of Tamil Nadu vs State of Kerala and another’, urging the central government to immediately take over and ensure construction of the SYL canal to restore the due SYL water to people of Haryana. The House urged the Punjab government to extend all cooperation in construction of the SYL canal in its territory.
Moving the resolution on the concluding day of the monsoon session, parliamentary affairs minister Randeep Singh Surjewala said the SYL canal was hope and faith for people of Haryana as parched land and farmers of Haryana had patiently harboured the hope of irrigating their fields for over five decades.
Narrating the chronology of the developments leading to the delay since 1960, Surjewala also mentioned the names of the then ruling governments of Haryana (and also Punjab) and subtly explained the legal and political aspects of the issue. Reacting to this, INLD MLA Ram Pal Majra, who supported the resolution, said it was during the stint of Devi Lal from 1987 to 1991 as chief minister that the maximum construction work for the SYL canal was done in Haryana.
CREDIT WAR
Even though Surjewala insisted that all the members should rise above the party lines and collectively fight for Haryana’s share of water, the House saw heated arguments over the same with several other INLD members, including Abhay Chautala and Ashok Arora, also joining Majra to highlight the SYL work done during the INLD rule and blaming the Congress for the delay.
Chautala went on say that the credit for the SYL canal workw ent only to Devi Lal (his grandfather) and not to CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s father Ranbir Singh Hooda or Shamsher Singh Surjewala, father of Randeep Surjewala.
On this, Hooda and Surjewala said it was wrong to name the members who were not in the House and also, for, none of Congress MLAs named anyone. Several members from treasury benches, including Kiran Chaudhry, Capt Ajay Yadav, Ram Kishan Fauji and Naresh Sharma also objected to Opposition members’ remarks and held that it was rather during the regime of Bansi Lal and other Congress governments that the work took place.
They added that it was the INLD and BJP that sided with the ruling Akali government in Punjab and created hurdles in the work for the same. On this, the Opposition members held that though the Congress ruled at the Centre as well in Haryana and Punjab for long enough, it had not done anything in the context.
BJP SUPPORT
The BJP legislature party leader Anil Vij held that the BJP supported the resolution “ignoring the mistakes and failures of predecessors”. “Though I do not want to name anyone but it is a fact that it has been Haryana, which has been a loser in the context,” he said, adding had Haryana fought directly in the court instead of fighting on political front, it would have got benefited and long ago.
This again triggered the arguments among the ruling party and Opposition though Hooda and Surjewala pacified them saying that let the House pass the resolution irrespective of “colour” or ideology of one’s political party.
The Haryana Vidhan Sabha on Monday passed a resolution urging the Centre to immediately ensure construction of Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal.
Though trio parties — the ruling Congress and both the opposition parties namely INLD and BJP — blamed each other for over five decade delay in construction of the SYL canal, the Vidhan Sabha also resolved to now take an allparty delegation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the matter.
The resolution is based on the May 7, 2014, judgment of the constitutional bench of five judges of the Supreme Court in a case titled ‘Sstate of Tamil Nadu vs State of Kerala and another’, urging the central government to immediately take over and ensure construction of the SYL canal to restore the due SYL water to people of Haryana. The House urged the Punjab government to extend all cooperation in construction of the SYL canal in its territory.
