Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Chandigarh, July 12
The Punjab Congress has lashed out at the Badals for trying to befool the people by taking a sham high moral ground on the SYL issue after brazenly selling off the state’s water rights and failing to protect its interest in the courts for 10 years.
Had the Badals, who misruled Punjab for a decade, taken proper legal recourse, matters would have not come to such a sorry pass, several senior Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) leaders said in a statement here on Wednesday.
Both Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Badal were now trying to provoke Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh to defy the Supreme Court, clearly exposing their utter lack of faith in the judiciary, said Manpreet Singh Badal, Tripit R Singh Bajwa and Rana Gurjit Singh, all ministers in the state cabinet.
The Badals have never believed in the rule of law and took no meaningful steps to fight Punjab’s SYL case while they were in power, said the Congress leaders, adding that the former chief minister had, in fact, deliberately got the case messed up in court as part of the deal he had struck with former Haryana chief minister Devi Lal during an earlier tenure.
The Punjab government, under Badal, appointed as their AG Ashok Aggarwal, a Haryanvi advocate who was, at one time, also AG of Haryana (under the Chautala government), and the said officer never went to the court for hearing on the SYL issue, the PPCC leaders pointed out.
Further, they said, the main reason for bringing in the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004, which was enacted during the previous tenure of Captain Amarinder, was never presented before the judiciary. What is more, AK Ganguly, the main architect of the Act, was removed by Badal from the legal team appointed to take the case forward in the court, they added.
The PPCC leaders further said that Badal’s betrayal of the people of Punjab on the SYL dispute and his shameful double standards in the matter were a matter of record. They pointed to documentary evidence, including a notification dated February 20, 1978, through which he been instrumental in acquiring land for SYL construction in Punjab.
Later, Badal went on to write to Haryana government vide letters no: 7/78-IW(i)-78/23617 demanding payment of Rs 3 crore more as he had already taken Rs 2 crore for the purpose. This was in follow-up to an agreement between him and Devi Lal, said the Congress leaders, adding that the then Haryana chief minister had even acknowledged this in his state assembly on March 1, 1978.
Captain Amarinder, said the PPCC leaders, had been steadfast on his stand against the SYL all through and was committed to protecting the water rights of the people of Punjab in view of the critical water shortage in the state. There was no question of negotiating the interests of the people of the state, they said, adding that unlike the Akalis, the Congress never had, and never will betray Punjab. The Congress stand on SYL was clearly articulated in the party poll manifesto, which the Captain Amarinder government had adopted as a sacrosanct policy document for running the affairs of the state, said the PPCC leaders.
