Water
top priority: Cong MP
Asks people to write to President & CJI for prompt disposal of SYL issue

Nangal Chaudhary, April 10
The Congress MP from Gurgaon, Rao Inderjeet Singh, has exhorted the people of South Haryana to write to the President and the Chief Justice of India for prompt disposal of the presidential reference on channelising the surplus Ravi-Beas waters to southern Haryana through the SYL canal.

Addressing a “Jal Rally” here today, the MP pointed out that the matter had been pending for nearly seven years. The President had referred the contentious issue to the Supreme Court after the Punjab Assembly passed the Punjab Termination of (Water) Agreements Act in 2004, annulling the tripartite agreement signed by the Chief Ministers of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan in the presence of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1981.

Rao Inderjeet Singh said in Haryana the management and uniform distribution of water and not the Lokpal Bill was the top priority. “We have been living with corruption and the country has seen a sound economicgrowth...Hence, the Lokpal Bill can wait,” he maintained.

Criticising the media for making a big deal of Anna Hazare sitting on fast against corruption, he said: “If 500 people gather in New Delhi, the issue assumes significance while even if 50,000 people assemble here, it is played down.”

Congress MP Shruti Choudhry and party spokesperson Ved Prakash Vidrohi also addressed the gathering. Union Water Resources Minister Salman Khursheed, who was to be the chief guest, did not turn up. Explaining his absence, Rao Inderjeet said he (Khursheed) was in Tamil Nadu for campaigning. Congress MP, AICC secretary and co-incharge of Haryana affairs, Tara Chand Bhagora, the party’s observer for today’s rally, said he would convey the people’s concerns to the party high command.