Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) members and leaders on Wednesday staged a protest in Punjab’s Abohar against the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Government, accusing it of ‘surrendering the State’s water to Rajasthan’, even as the AAP flatly denied it.
SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal said that the AAP was conspiring to trade off the State’s river waters to secure votes in Rajasthan ahead of the upcoming Assembly election there.
He said the very fact that Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had not denied news reports about the assurance given by him to the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) that the AAP Government would increase water share flowing from the Sirhind feeder (in Punjab) to Rajasthan, was proof of a diabolic plot to rob Punjab of its river waters.
The AAP Punjab chief spokesperson Malvinder Singh Kang, meanwhile said, “Sukhbir Badal is lying on the issue of water, and the AAP Government is not going to give even an extra drop of water to Rajasthan.”
Mr. Kang said that Mr. Badal was deliberately spreading lies to defame Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and the AAP, but the people of Punjab were not going to be misled by his lies.
“Punjab is already acutely short of water, so there is not even a possibility of giving more water to other states. There has never been any talk of giving more water than what is going, to Rajasthan, for the last 60-70 years. Rajasthan will not get even an extra drop of water than that,” he said.
“Rajasthan will not get even an extra drop of water than that”Malvinder Singh KangAAP Punjab chief spokesperson
