‘Friendly match’ — oppn takes dig at AAP as its Punjab & Haryana units lock horns over SYL issue

LoP Bajwa says Punjabis must wake up to what AAP's 'fake revolutionaries' are up to. Punjab minister Cheema & Haryana AAP's Tanwar held press meets on dispute in adjacent bungalows.

 The bout between the Punjab and Haryana units of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) over the completion of the had all the trappings of a friendly match.

The Punjab unit led by Finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema and Haryana unit led by Ashok Tanwar, chairman of Haryana AAP’s campaign committee, held two separate press conferences Thursday, within an hour of one another, staking claim to Sutlej’s waters.

Even more uncanny was that the press conferences were held in two adjacent government bungalows in the Punjab Ministers’ Complex in Sector 39, Chandigarh. Both bungalows are allotted to AAP MLAs from Punjab.

Cheema categorically dismissed the possibility of Punjab giving “even a drop of water” of the Sutlej or any other river to any state, saying that the state is reeling under an acute shortage of water for irrigation. Tanwar, on the other hand, said Haryana will do everything it takes to ensure it gets its rightful share of water from Punjab.

Highlighting this contrast, the Opposition in Punjab was quick to remark that this was proof of the AAP’s “dual-faced hypocrisy” on the issue.

Leader of the Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa wrote on X Thursday that this warranted an urgent need for voters to wake up to what the “AAP’s fake revolutionaries are up to”. 

On Friday, Bajwa told ThePrint that a political party’s decision to hold a press conference from a government complex “cannot be justified”.

“First of all, it is shocking that houses meant for cabinet ministers were allotted to MLAs. Second, while one can understand that a Punjab MLA’s house was used to hold a press conference by the Punjab unit of the party, by no extent of imagination can a Punjab government house be used for a press conference by the party’s Haryana unit,” he said.

Bajwa also said that the events of the day “completely exposed” the AAP and how its central leadership and Bhagwant Mann “are not serious about the SYL canal issue”.

“They are playing a friendly match with one another, holding press conferences together, using Punjab government houses. They think people of Punjab are fools and will be taken in by all this,” he said.

The proposed 211-km-long SYL canal was intended to formalise the division of water of the Sutlej river between Punjab and Haryana. While the 90-km stretch passing through Haryana was completed by 1980, work on the remaining 121-km stretch on the Punjab side was initiated in 1982 but later shelved owing to political opposition.

Moreover, successive governments in Punjab refused to share the waters of the Sutlej with Haryana and Delhi on the grounds that the state had no water to spare.

The issue flared up again earlier this week after the Supreme Court Wednesday instructed Punjab to complete its portion of the canal.