Skip to main content

Akali Dal's belated opposition to water dispute bill


Has Harsimrat Kaur Badal recorded her dissent against waters bill?

Chandigarh, August 5: The Shiromani Akali Dal has once again taken the confusing position that the party would not allow a single drop of water from the state rivers to flow to any other state of the country as there is no surplus available with Punjab.
The resolve was reiterated at an emergency meeting of its political affairs committee meeting in Delhi last evening. As a follow up, a party delegation led by its president and MP Sukhbir Singh Badal met union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat today with a detailed presentation opposing the Inter State River Water Disputes (Amendment) Bill 2019 in the present form. The Bill has already been adopted in the Lok Sabha.
The adoption of the bill in the Lok Sabha raises two basic issues in the context of Akali Dal’s belated move as the party is in alliance with the BJP in Narendra Modi government.
Did Akali Dal’s representative in the union cabinet Harsimrat Kaur Badal record her dissent against the Bill at any stage?
Did the party oppose it in Lok Sabha?
The Akali Dal should answer these two issues.
The Akali Dal when part of the government at the centre, has the history of not sticking to any stand on the very issues  that it would take up when not in power. The dismal record of the party is testimony to this fact.
Another dimension is the resolve not to allow a drop of water to flow to the neighbouring states.
The Akali Dal has been misleading the people and creating tension in Haryana and Rajasthan by making such statements over the years. The issue has been mainly that of Satluj Yamuna Link Canal. Moreover, Haryana has been getting more than one MAF of its allocation that was to flow through this career channel.
It is pertinent to point out that water started flowing to Rajasthan under the Bhakra Canal project years before the Rajasthan Feeder was completed. One branch of Bhakra canal from Tohana headworks flows to Rajasthan. Tohana head is now in Haryana. Moreover, Bhakra has been a joint project involving Punjab and Rajasthan from the very beginning. That was the first violation of Riparian principle after 1947 so far as the Punjab rivers are concerned. Rajasthan Feeder was constructed after 8.MAF was allocated to Rajasthan under the 1955 agreement. This allocation was made  on the basis of share demanded by the respective governments. This was in the background of dispute with Pakistan.
Water flows to Rajasthan and Haryana through Bhakra canal system and Rajasthan Canal under the post partition arrangement and this flow can’t be stopped. More than 70 per cent of the water from Punjab rivers flows to Haryana and Rajasthan under this arrangement and Akali Dal continues to talk of not allowing a drop of water to flow out. This is why it is misleading.
The only issue is the SYL Canal. The irony is that the first notice to acuire land for this project was issued in 1978 when the chief minister was Parkash Singh Badal. And it was again Akali Dal that committed itself to construct this canal under the Rajiv-Longowal accord. The construction stopped after intervention by the militants in 1992.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Damdami Taksal collaborates in Sikh religio-political domain with BJP that is eyeing Punjab in 2027 Assembly elections

Of Saffron Turbans , BJP and the Sikhs Jagtar Singh Chandigarh:  The Maharashtra government released ads in newspapers earlier regarding function to commemorate 350 th martyrdom anniversary of the ninth Sikh Guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur, in Navi Mumbai. Guru Tegh Bahadur was martyred in Delhi on the orders of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. The Guru   opted for this supreme sacrifice for human rights and religious freedom. There should be nothing unusual about a state government inserting such ad in the newspapers. However, it was unusual at one level. The leaders whose pictures the ad carried included Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, his deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde and others.   What was striking about this ad was that all these leaders donned turbans with saffron being the dominant colour. The Ninth Sikh Guru sacrificed his life for the cause of humanity and human rights. It may be mention...
Post a Comment
Read more

Strategic polarisation by BJP has potential to dislocate social secularism in Punjab

  Strategic polarisation by BJP has potential to dislocate social secularism in Punjab Jagtar Singh Chandigarh: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Dera Sachkhand Ballan in the Doaba heartland—an area where Dalit social and religious formations wield considerable influence—has once again revived the debate on the role of deras in Punjab’s complex religio-political landscape. Punjab, a border state that has historically witnessed alternating cycles of violent and remarkably peaceful mobilisations over more than a century, continues to remain politically sensitive and socially layered. This is typical Punjab whose political discourse has invariably been dictated by the Sikh religio-political discourse, at least till recently. This dominant Panthic religio-political discourse has now got fragmented over the period, thereby yielding space to new permutations and combinations in the state’s religio-political matrix. It can safely be said that Punjab is in a flux. The ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Damage to institution of Akal Takht symbolising Sikh sovereignty more important dimension of current crisis in Sikh domain

  Ideological Damage to Akal Takht most important dimension of Akali Crisis Ground Zero By Jagtar Singh The Sikh religio-political discourse entered a new phase on Baisakhi 2025 — the historic day on which Guru Gobind Singh, in 1699, created the Khalsa at Anandpur Sahib, completing the ideological foundation laid by Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of the Sikh faith. Significant developments emerged from the well-attended Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) conference held at Takht Sri Damdama Sahib on April 13. It was the first major public appearance of Sukhbir Singh Badal since his re-election as party president on April 12, marking his return to the helm after a brief interregnum. Sukhbir, who first succeeded his father, Parkash Singh Badal, as party president in 2008, resumes leadership of a party long dominated by the Badal family—an influence that has spanned over three decades, the longest in the SAD’s history. For months, the religio-political landscape of Punjab has remained i...
Post a Comment
Read more