Sukhbir Badal dares Kejriwal not to play politics on SYL

Chandigarh: Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal today asked Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Convener not to play politics on the sensitive issue of Satluj Yamuna Link (SYL) canal even as he asked chief minister Bhagwant Mann to urge the AAP Convener to withdraw the guarantee given on this issue to the people of Haryana.

Talking to newsmen at Gurdwara Rakabganj in Delhi, the SAD President said AAP had again started befooling Punjabis in its age-old tradition.

He said the Punjab finance minister had now announced that the State’s river waters would not flow into Haryana, even as a Rajya Sabha mp 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.

Asserting that this insidious conduct of AAP had the potential to inflame sentiments in the entire region, Sukhbir Badal said the continued silence of chief minister Bhagwant Mann on this issue was being read as a weakness by Punjabis. “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. If Mann does not step in and ask Kejriwal to withdraw the guarantee given by his party to the people of Haryana, he should be prepared to face the angst of Punjabis who will not allow one drop of water to flow into Haryana from the SYL canal”.

Badal said as far as the SAD was concerned, the issue of SYL had been closed forever in 2016 when then chief minister Parkash Singh Badal denotified all land acquired to build the canal and handed it back to farmers. “Now there is no land available for construction of the canal. Thinking of taking water from the canal to Haryana amounts to day dreaming”.

“Bhagwant Mann should not allow misuse of the Punjab Police on the directions of the Delhi chief minister. We are witnessing cases being registered against all those who have stood up to AAP and the latest victim is Kumar Vishwas. Punjabis did not give power to AAP to enable it to settle its political scores. The mandate was to provide transparent, persecution free governance as well as fulfill all the promises made to the people. The AAP government should concentrate on this rather than registering false cases against its opponent and sending Punjab Police personnel to their doorsteps to harass and persecute them”.