Take stand against construction of SYL canal: Punjab Congress to Guv

Chandigarh, Oct 09 (IANS) Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring and senior members of the party on Monday took part in a march to the Governor’s office to hand over a memorandum demanding that he take a stand for Punjab against the construction of the Satluj Yamuna Link canal.

A huge number of supporters joined the march, coming forward to fight against any decision that would lead to the construction of the SYL canal.

Those in attendance listened to the leading members of the party before moving towards the Governor’s office.

Partap Singh Bajwa, Leader of the Opposition, warned that even though he respected the decision of the people of Punjab to vote for ‘badlaav’, this change would cost the state a lot.

Bajwa stated that the current AAP government in Punjab had a number of flaws, the most harmful being the party’s inexperience in handling power.

He said this inexperience was visible in every decision taken by the AAP government.

Warring spoke against the current AAP regime as well as the Central government. During his speech, the President, while targeting the Central government said, “The Centre has always acted against the interests of Punjab, be it the three black farm laws, withholding the release of our RDF fund, insufficient release of funds to our flood victims, and now this issue of constructing the SYL canal.”

Further commenting on the decision-making of the Central government, Warring claimed that “The BJP conveniently diverts all difficult decision-making to the Supreme Court. On the controversial issue of the Ram Janam Bhoomi, the BJP conveniently involved the Supreme Court, and now on this delicate issue related to Punjab’s waters, the BJP gave an affidavit to the apex court that it is beyond them to resolve the issue via arbitration so the court must decide on the same".

This he claimed was totally against the idea of the federal structure. The Central government must rise up to its responsibility, he said.

Demanding that the Governor come forward in the interests of the state, the PPCC chief pleaded that he must write a letter to the Central government informing them about the actual status of "our waters and that we do not have any water to spare".

“The state itself uses 80 per cent of water from tubewells, 70 per cent of our water is already given to neighbouring states. It is totally unjust to demand any more water from us. Where do we get this water from?” quipped Warring.