Amarinder Singh ready to go to jail over Punjab's water

Chandigarh: Punjab Congress president Captain Amarinder Singh on Sunday declared that he was prepared to go to jail in defiance of court orders in the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) case but would not let a single drop of water leave the state.

“I am prepared to go behind bars, I will defy any orders to save Punjab waters,” he declared at an ex-servicemen meet here, and blamed chief minister Parkash Singh Badal for the SYL “mess”.

Pointing out that Punjab was itself short of water, Mr Singh lamented the injustice done to the state at the time of its reorganisation, with Punjab getting 60% land but only 40% water as the Yamuna River water was not shared with Haryana. If SYL is constructed, about 10 lakh acres of southern Punjab would go dry, which the next Congress government will prevent by bringing in tough legislations through majority in the Assembly, he added.

Expressing dismay at the stepmotherly treatment meted out to ex-servicemen by the Modi government, Mr Singh said the Modi government has failed to support the ex-servicemen on the One Rank One Pension (OROP) issue even after such a long time.

The Modi government, with defence minister Manohar Parrikar, is subjecting the defence services to all kinds of humiliation, through Pay Commission anomalies and degradation of Army ranks below civilian rankings among other things, the PPCC chief said.

Army chiefs have been made to sit in the 18th row at official functions while Mr Parrikar himself has been taking Guard of Honour in bathroom slippers and with his hands in his pocket, said Mr Singh pointed out, terming the Central government’s attitude towards defence personnel and ex-servicemen as “utterly shameful”.

He accused “babus” (bureaucrats) of trying to lower the prestige of the Army and promised that his government in Punjab, after the polls, would implement all the promises made in the manifesto for their welfare.

Mr Singh also repeated his promise of waiving off all farm loans to save the farm community from living in distress, at times culminating in suicide. He also attacked the Badal government for promoting communal polarisation by encouraging sacrilegious incidents.

The PPCC chief underlined the need to divert policemen from wasteful VVIP duties to maintain law and order in the state. The Badals have mortgaged the state’s resources to promote their personal and family interests, he said, promising to bring the state out of its current ruin through the “nau nukte” listed in the party manifesto for the uplift of the people.