Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president Capt Amarinder Singh on Sunday slammed Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and said he should own moral responsibility for his Government filing an affidavit in the Supreme Court supporting Haryana’s stand on the Satluj-Yamuna link (SYl) canal and apologise to the people of Punjab for the same.
“Just by saying that your law officer acted on his own, you cannot escape the responsibility since you happen to be the head of the Government,” Capt Amarinder reminded him, while adding, “no law officer or counsel acts of his own and he appears in the court after being duly briefed by the Government”.
Also, having a dig at Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his Deputy and son Sukhbir Badal, Capt Amarinder said that they had played an equally dubious role on the issue by getting the legislation passed in the Assembly but delaying the Governor’s assent on it.
“This allowed the Centre and Haryana crucial time to approach the Supreme Court which ordered status quo thus defeating the very purpose of the Act passed in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha,” said the former Chief Minister.
PPCC chief said that Kejriwal was badly exposed in the matter either way. “Either his intentions towards Punjab are not honest or he has no control over what is happening in his Government”, he remarked.
Maintaining that Kejriwal was very much in know of what his counsel stated in the Supreme Court and had duly approved the affidavit, Capt Amarinder said: “He (Kejriwal) is now trying to wriggle out in his characteristic manner and put the entire blame on the poor legal counsel as the issue exposed and boomeranged on him.”
“His characteristic backing out notwithstanding, what his legal counsel stated in the Supreme Court is in strong coherence with what Kejriwal had himself said earlier that all States including Haryana and Delhi should get the water,” he pointed out, while remarking, “it is a typical case of Kejriwal trying to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds”.
Capt Amarinder said: “Kejriwal has all the right to take a stand he liked, but he must not try to play dual games.
“In Punjab, he said that Punjab did not have a single drop of water to spare for Haryana and the same evening after reaching Delhi, he changed his stand saying that all the states had equal rights on the water”, he pointed out, adding, this only smacked of dubious political opportunism on Delhi Chief Minister’s part.