Chandigarh: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo Arvind Kejriwal who was in Haryana on Wednesday, urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a solution to the vexed issue of rivers’ water sharing through the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal between Punjab and Haryana which has defied any solution for decades despite several rounds of litigation.
Kejriwal, who was accompanied by Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann, was interacting with newspersons in Hisar where he flagged off his ``Make India No 1 campaign’’. Their visit was also part of the AAP campaign for the upcoming by-election of the Adampur assembly seat which recently fell vacant after Congress’ Kuldeep Bishnoi joined the BJP.
Stating that the SYL canal was an important issue for both the states, he said that dirty politics was played on the issue and they two should not fight each other. He appealed to the prime minister to find a solution and offered to give his suggestion if the latter was unable to find any.
Mann also said he had no hesitation in meeting his Haryana counterpart Manohar Lal Khattar on the issue. Mann, however, also urged the Centre to find a solution to the issue as both states were facing a water shortage.
The Delhi CM Kejriwal also said the Haryana government had closed 700 government schools in the past few years, something which was a dangerous trend. On Bishnoi joining BJP, the AAP leaders alleged that he had shifted loyalties under pressure so as to get his income tax-related cases settled.
It is pertinent to mention here that the apex court had on Tuesday asked the chief ministers of Punjab and Haryana to amicably resolve the vexed issue of the construction of the SYL canal that has defied any solution for decades despite several rounds of litigation.
A three-judge SC bench led by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul asked the Union Jal Shakti Ministry to call a meeting of the two CMs for the purpose and seeking a report on the progress, it fixed its next hearing in January 2023.
Stating that water was a natural resource and living beings must learn to share it - whether individuals or states, the bench said that the matter could not be looked at from the point of view of only one city or one state.
According to media reports the attorney general K K Venugopal said that Punjab was not cooperating in the matter and that the Centre had written a letter to the new chief minister in April, but there was no response.
Earlier in 2020 also, the top court had asked the two states to attempt a negotiated settlement.
While Haryana senior counsel Shyam Divan and additional advocate general Anish Gupta demanded the execution of the 2002 decree in favour of Haryana, advocate J S Chhabra, representing Punjab, assured the top court that it would cooperate in finding a negotiated settlement to the problem.
