E-Paper
Don’t play politics on SYL canal: Sukhbir to Kejriwal
Sukhbir suggested Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann to urge his party’s convener to withdraw the guarantee given on the issue to the people of Haryana.
Chandigarh: Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Wednesday asked Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal not to play politics on the sensitive issue of Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal.
He suggested Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann to urge his party’s convener to withdraw the guarantee given on the issue to the people of Haryana.
Talking to the media at Gurdwara Rakabganj in Delhi, the SAD chief said the AAP had again started befooling Punjabis. Punjab finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema has now announced that the state’s waters would not flow into Haryana, even as a Rajya Sabha MP belonging to AAP had given a guarantee on behalf of Kejriwal in Haryana that water from the SYL canal would irrigate each and every field in the state.
“The conduct of the AAP had the potential to inflame sentiments in the entire region, and the silence maintained by Bhagwant Mann on the matter was being read as a weakness by Punjabis,” said Sukhbir, adding that it seems Mann knows the real intentions of Kejriwal, which the latter has made public earlier also by filing an affidavit in the Supreme Court demanding water be released to Haryana and Delhi through the SYL canal.
If Mann does not ask Kejriwal to withdraw the guarantee given Haryana, he should be prepared to face the anger of Punjabis who will not allow one drop of water to flow into Haryana from the canal, said Sukhbir.
Sukhbir said as far as the SAD was concerned, the issue of SYL had been closed forever in 2016 when the then chief minister, Parkash Singh Badal, de-notified all land acquired to build the canal and handed it back to farmers. “Now, there is no land available for the construction of the canal. Thinking of taking water from the canal to Haryana amounts to day dreaming,” added Sukhbir.
