Haryana Assembly: SYL canal issue dominates day three of budget session

As arguments ensued with the Congress stating that despite five months having passed since the decision of the Supreme Court, the Haryana government has not made any efforts to get construction of the canal completed nor have they met the Prime Minister.

With the credit war on the issue on, Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij said: “Khudai kisne karvayi humein pata nahi, but rukvayi Congress ne. (We do not know who got the digging done, but we know that it was stalled by the Congress.” Blaming former Punjab CM Capt Amarinder Singh for terminating the bilateral water agreements, he said the Haryana Congress unit never went to either Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi then.

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar urged the political parties to refrain from politicising the SYL issue. “The state is near to achieve its goal and the political parties are competing with each other to take credit for the same. 2,600 cusecs of Haryana’s share of water is being utilised by Punjab and Rajasthan throughout the year. If supplied to Haryana, it will irrigate 10.8 lakh acres. The farmers were suffering loss of hundreds of crores annually,” he said.

Vidhan Sabha Speaker Kanwar Pal interved and said: “Haryana has not received a drop of water, yet every party wants to take credit for the canal. It was public money and any government could have called tenders and allotted work for digging. Credit will go to the person who gets the water. Twenty percent of the time of the House has been spent on the issue.”

He further said the Congress had its Prime Minister four times and INLD twice. Then why did water not come, he questioned.

After a discussion on other issues for some time, Congress MLA Raghuvir Singh Kadian again wanted to speak on the SYL. Trying to stop him, the Speaker said, “SYL sun sun ke kaan pak gaye. No more discussion on the issue will be allowed.”

BJP takes potshots at ‘rift’ in Congress

BJP MLA G C Gupta said during the 10-year of Congress rule, Panchkula was completely neglected. “Former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had some grudge and no development work was done for 10 years. Maybe the reason was that Kumari Selja was the MP and the area came under her. It just shows the Congress mentality. The recent attack on Congress President Ashok Tanwar is another example,” he said.

Red beacon on B S Hooda’s car

Congress MLA Kuldeep Sharma raised the issue of BJP MLA and chief whip G C Gupta writing minister of state on his nameplate and using the logo of minister on his car. Countering him, Gupta asked in what capacity was B S Hooda using red beacon on his car when it was not allowed. Transport Minister Krishan Lal Panwar said he did not give permission to Hooda. Finance Minister Capt Abhimanyu argued that Hooda should show the permission.

Jat reservation

BJP MLA Prem Lata said the reason why people were sitting on dharna for the past 35 days was that the youth in villages are not getting good education or job opportunities. Referring to the existing system of reservation she said that even if students get 90 percent, another with 50 percent marks might get a better post due to reservation. BJP MLA GC Gupta attacked the Congress and INLD stating that they were politicising the issue and not opposing those who were speaking of beheading Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He termed it a conspiracy not to let investment come to Haryana.

CM announcements

INLD MLA Zakir Hussain pointed out that the announcements made by the CM were not being fulfilled. He said that in case of irrigation department, 80 percent of the announcements were incomplete. The officers were declaring these non-feasible. He said that the officers were trying to make the government look like a failure.