SYL brings political cauldron on boil

Naveen S Garewal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 26

Politics in Haryana is heating up with the Jat agitation keeping the ruling BJP on its toes. At the same time, the Jat dominated opposition parties — the Congress and the INLD — have also decided to make their presence felt. The kid glove approach of the Punjab Police in dealing with the INLD workers demanding they be allowed to dig the defunct Satluj-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal has several inferences besides the apparent.

Punjab is waiting for election results. Despite keeping a brave front, the ruling Shiromani Aklai Dal (SAD)-BJP alliance is uncertain of a third-time comeback on account of the prevailing anti-incumbency and a triangular contest there. At the same time, the close relationship between Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and the late Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal is well known. It can, therefore, be inferred that the Badals could be trying to help the INLD revive in Haryana with the SYL issue and by going easy about the party workers’ march towards Punjab on February 23.

The impact in terms of the INLD’s revival after its workers moving to the Shambhu border with spades and carrying out a symbolic digging is any body’s guess. The planning and handling of the “Operation Dig-Up” was no secret and thus, the manner in which the Punjab Police responded to an “attack on Punjab waters” by supplying bottled drinking water to INLD workers only suggests that the move was more political than realistic.

The timing of the INLD move when the apex court is considering the matter makes things even more obvious. One wonders why the INLD has taken up the SYL issue only at the end of the second term of the SAD-BJP government.

Giving a call to dig the SYL canal at this stage when the Supreme Court (on November 11, 2016) declared the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004, as unconstitutional appears misplaced. Former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh had through this legislation abrogated the 1981 water agreement between Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. One wonders what took the INLD over a decade to lay emphasis on its right to erstwhile Punjab waters.

A rally held at the ‘sabzi mandi’ in Ambala may have helped INLD score brownie points that this largest opposition party in the Haryana Vidhan Sabha will use to corner the Khattar government. The INLD’s desperation to get arrested by the Punjab Police aims at writing in the state’s history that the leaders have been committed to “an unparalleled sacrifice to fight for Haryana waters”. The violation of Section 144 of the CrPC is a bailable offence, but two INLD MPs, 18 MLAs and 73 other tier-two leaders are waiting for the Haryana Vidhan Sabha session to start on Monday before they can travel straight from the jail to the Vidhan Sabha and record their “sacrifice”.

Though it may have been a well-planned strategy for initiating the rejuvenation of the INLD in the state that is already witnessing a Jat-Non-Jat polarisation at the hands of the BJP leadership, the absence from the rally of some senior members of Chautala clan, including a sitting MP and MLA, do not auger well for the party. The entire exercise is now being viewed as an affair of Abhay Chautala with the family of Ajay Chautala staying away for well-argued reasons.

The BJP government almost completing half of its term in the office soon, political alignments and re-alignments to flex muscles with the opposition are expected, but what is more intriguing is the talk about some top-level changes among political bosses in the state.