After Punjab, Haryana calls all-party meeting on water issue 

Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini has called an all-party meeting here on Saturday to discuss the Punjab government's refusal to release more water for the state. The announcement on Friday comes hours after the Bhagwant Mann-led AAP government held a similar meeting that saw parties putting up a united stand on the water issue.

Party representatives (president or secretary) of eight political parties have been invited for the meeting which will be held at Haryana Niwas at 2 pm on Saturday.

While Mohan Lal Badoli will represent the BJP, the Congress will be represented by state chief Udai Bhan. Ram Pal Majra has been invited from the Indian National Lok Dal, Dushyant Chautala from the Jannayak Janta Party and Sushil Gupta from Aam Aadmi Party. Krishan Jamalpur of the Bahujan Samaj Party, Prem Chand of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), along with National People’s Party (headquartered in Shillong), have also been invited for the meeting to decide the future course of action.

Congress leader and former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has already demanded a special session of the Haryana Vidhan Sabha on the water-sharing issue.

The INLD has already announced that the state will divided into three zones and protests will be held on May 5, 6, 7 during which Party leaders will hand over a memorandum to the respective Deputy Commissioners for the Prime Minister. “We will demand that the Prime Minister direct the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) to give us our share of water,” state chief Rampal Majra said. After this, a Party meeting will be called to decide the future course of action, he added.

The three parties---the BJP, the AAP and the Congress---find themselves in a rare spot, with the leaders of the two states taking contradicting stands. The Punjab leaders of the parties maintain they don’t have water to spare, while the Haryana leaders want their share of water.

Meanwhile, a meeting to discuss the implementation of the BBMB’s decision to provide additional 4500 cusecs of water to Haryana for eight days to meet the immediate water needs in parts of Haryana and Rajasthan was held.

The meeting was chaired by Union Home Secretary Gobind Mohan and attended by senior officials from the Government of India, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and the BBMB.

The meeting was attended by Anurag Agarwal, Additional Chief Secretary, Irrigation Department. Debashree Mukherjee, Secretary, Ministry of Jal Shakti and Pankaj Agarwal, Secretary, Power were also present at the meeting.

Haryana spoke strongly for the release of its additional water requirement. It demanded that the decision of the BBMB be implemented under which additional 4,500 cusecs of water should be released from Bhakra dams for Haryana for the next eight days, so that their immediate water requirements can be met. It was also agreed that during the filling period of the dams, the BBMB would provide additional water to Punjab to meet any additional requirement of the dams. The BBMB will immediately convene a board meeting to chalk out the implementation framework for release of additional water to Haryana. The Union Home Secretary asked Punjab officials to remove the police deployed at the Bhakra bam with immediate effect.