Chandigarh: The Chandigarh police used water cannons to disperse the protesting Punjab Congress workers marching towards the Punjab Raj Bhawan over the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal issue and subsequently detained several of them here on Monday.
The police, which had set up barricades to stop the Congress workers from marching towards the residence of the Punjab governor Banwarilal Purohit, used the water cannons when they tried to force their way through the barricades. Several of the top leaders and workers of Congress, the main opposition party, were subsequently detained by the Chandigarh police. They were, however, let off later in the evening.
The Congress leaders including the leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa and state party president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring held that the Congress wanted to call on the governor and hand over a memorandum demanding to take a stand for interests of Punjab against the construction of SYL canal.
Cong accuses Punjab CM of failing to safeguard the interest of the state
They said that they would neither allow the construction of the said canal nor allow a single drop of water from Punjab to go to any other state as Punjab had no surplus water to share with any other state. They also took on the chief minister Bhagwant Mann-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government accusing it of having failed to safeguard the interest of the state over the SYL issue in the apex court.
It may be recalled that while the Punjab BJP had held a protest on Saturday, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) had threatened to hold a protest at chief minister’s official residence here on Tuesday.
For the record, the Supreme Court had on October 4 last asked the Centre to survey the portion of land in Punjab that was allocated for the construction of SYL canal and the extent of construction done there. It may be recalled that the root of the problem is the 1981 water-sharing agreement after Haryana was carved out of Punjab in 1966. For effective allocation of water, the SYL canal was to be constructed and the two states were required to construct their portions within their territories.
The project envisaged a 214-km canal, of which a 122-km stretch was to be constructed in Punjab and the remaining 92 km in Haryana. Haryana has completed the project in its territory but Punjab, which launched the construction work in 1982, shelved it subsequently due to various reasons.
