To sink AAP, Capt raises the water bogey
Thursday, 16/07/2015
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TARN TARAN: Using water as an issue, Captain Amarinder Singh, Congress deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, has attacked the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) before it can be any danger to his dream of becoming Punjab’s chief minister in 2017.
Amritsar MP Capt Amarinder Singh (centre) and leader of opposition in the Punjab assembly Sunil Jakhar during a rally at Shahbazpur village in Tarn Taran district on Wednesday.
The man who annulled the water-sharing treaty with Haryana when he was Punjab chief minister has now compared Haryana’s demand for completion of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal to the Kejriwal government’s promising every Delhi household more water. “From where will Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal get more water to suffice every household?” the ex-CM asked people on Wednesday, replying: “It will not be from Haryana or Rajasthan, but from Punjab’s current share in river water.”
He was at Shahbazpur village in the Khadoor Sahib assembly segment of Congress legislator Ramanjit Singh Sikki, addressing a rally during his party’s mass-contact programme. Reminding people that the river-water shares of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Delhi were fixed when these states were reorganised in the 1960s and the early 1970s, the Amritsar MP made it clear that Punjab had no water to spare for any other state. He referred to the water-sharing treaties he had annulled during his tenure as CM.
Pointing out that Delhi’s demand for water had shot up with the multiplying of its population and the expansion of the National Capital Region (NCR), Amarinder warned that “Kejriwal will now target Punjab, and if the Centre agrees to his demand, Punjab will be the loser and our farmers will suffer”. Pointing to the paddy fields around the rally venue, he said: “These will all go dry.”
Aware that the AAP can dent the Congress vote bank as it had done in the Lok Sabha elections last year when it won four of the 13 parliamentary seats, Amarinder wanted the large number of farmers at the rally, especially, to understand his concerns.
SAYS KEJRIWAL IS LIKE BADAL
Amarinder even compared Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and the latter’s Delhi counterpart, saying: “Both Kejriwal and Badal make many pre-poll promises, more than half of which they’ll not be able to fulfil during their tenures.” “From 2002 to 2007, I kept all my promises to voters,” he said.
‘SAD PANTHIC AGENDA WILL DRIVE AWAY BJP’
Countering Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, who had claimed at a public rally on Tuesday in Amritsar that the alliance between the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and his Bharatiya Janata Party was here to stay, Amarinder said: “Will Jaitley go with the Akalis if they pursue their favourite ‘panthic’ (Sikh religious) agenda in the run-up to the next assembly elections? It will be embarrassing for the BJP if it does; and if the Akalis do as I predict, the two allies will separate.”
ON DRUG ADDICTION
The Congress MP requested the Punjab and Haryana high court to take note of “the lies of the Akali government on drug addiction in the state”. He said the Punjab government had submitted in a reply that state had only about 1 lakh drug addicts, whereas in a reply filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act about 15 days ago, it had claimed the number to be more than 6 lakh.
‘NEED TO ALIGN RIVERS FOR FLOOD CONTROL’
SULTANPUR LODHI (KAPURTHALA): Amritsar MP and former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Wednesday demanded that the rivers in Punjab should be aligned properly to tackle the threat of floods in the region. The senior Congress leader said this here while on his way to Khadoor Sahib.
