Punjab stakes claim to ut, river water

Lily

B.R
Staff member
Chandigarh March 5:

In the run up to the Assembly elections, the SAD-BJP Government raked up the issue of Punjab’s total claim over Chandigarh, the water of rivers passing through the State and nefarious attempts on part of the Congress to break the hegemony of Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, as amply reflected in Governor Shivraj Patil’s inaugural address to the State Assembly Budget session.

Patil also highlight how the current regime had preferred development to the politics of vendetta. Haryana too reiterated its claim over river waters, a long pending dispute between the two States along with the fate of Chandigarh, which is currently the joint capital of two neighbouring States. Punjab has since long been claiming adequate share of the river water, while Haryana too has staked its claim, following which the matter is no pending before several tribunals including the Supreme Court for the final verdict.

The issue of vendetta politics raised by the SAD-BJP regime through the customary speech of Governor Patil is being seen as a tacit move on the part of the ruling alliance to heal the bruised feelings of the Congress whose leader Captain Amarinder Singh has several times gone public, reiterating his resolve to revenge the alleged atrocities on the Congress workers during the current regime.

“The people of Punjab had given their verdict against two unseemly trends that had crept into the State polity — political vendetta and confrontation, on one hand, and inaccessibility of those in the Government to the people, on the other. Prior to the elections of February 2007, an impression had been created that all means to crush political opponents are fair and democracy is only a tool for the promotion of vicious personal vendetta,” Patil said.

“This approach of the rulers was not limited to political opponents only. As a part of this approach, rulers came to view themselves as masters and became inaccessible to the people. This negated the very essence of democracy in which the people are the true masters. Plus, this put development and governance on the back burner and the State and its people suffered incalculable damage,” he said.

Referring to the aspirations of the people of Punjab, Patil said: “These aspirations have often been thwarted by successive Governments at the Centre in matters relating to the crucial rights of the State. The State has been subjected to gross injustice and discrimination on religious, political, economic and geographical matters.” “Vast Punjabi-speaking areas including the capital city of Chandigarh were willfully kept out of the State in total defiance of all precedents and principles of natural justice.

Similarly, the State was denied its legal rights over river waters, again in violation of the well established precedents and the nationally and internationally accepted Riparian principle. My government is committed to continue with struggle for getting brazen injustice done to the people on river waters and territorial issues vacated,” said Patil. “Injustice on religious issues still continues. The attempt to undermine the elected religious Parliament of the Sikhs, the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, is just one example.

These ill-advised moves are fraught with danger and are an invitation to religious and social discontent,” said Patil. “My Government strongly urges the Government of India not to do anything nor allow anything to be done by those over whom it has power, which may have the potential to disturb the hard earned atmosphere of peace and communal harmony in this sensitive border state,” he said.

Talking about economic discrimination and injustice in economic sphere, Patil said: “The formulae adopted for determining the percentage of people living below poverty line is just one example. On one hand, policymakers have been spreading the impression of Punjab lagging behind other States like Haryana in economic prosperity while, on the other, the enumeration of BPL families in these States has been done so as to deny our State of Central grants on this account.”

 
Top