Senior Akali leader Sukhbir Singh Badal, on Wednesday, cautioned the Union Government against going ahead with the reported decision to re-designate the post of “Advisor to Punjab Governor-cum-UT Administrator” as the “Chief Secretary, UT Chandigarh”.
Reacting to reports in a section of the press about a notification of the Union government to this effect, Badal said the latest decision comes with the active collusion of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)
government in Punjab and its Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann. “Mann had formally acknowledged Haryana’s right over Chandigarh by agreeing to the setting up of Haryana Legislative Assembly here. He had the same anti-Punjab stand on Punjab University and the PGIMER,” he said in a statement.
The Akali leader said that the transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab is a settled issue, committed by two prime ministers of the country and endorsed by the Union cabinet as well as by both the Houses of Parliament following the Memorandum of Settlement on Punjab in July 1985. “Even the issue of the Hindi speaking areas to be transferred to Haryana in lieu of Chandigarh stands settled beyond any possible dispute or doubt. Two separate Commissions set up by the Union Government had categorically ruled in favour of Punjab, saying that there was no Hindi speaking area in the state that could be transferred to Haryana,” he added.
“So, the only unfinished agenda of the 1966 re-organisation of Punjab was to restore to us our constitutional rights on the river waters as a riparian state, the transfer of Chandigarh and other
Punjabi-speaking areas to Punjab left out of the state and restoration of the state’s control over institutions and authorities like the BBMB, educational and cultural institutions etc. Punjab demands nothing more than its due rights as guaranteed under the Constitution of India.”
The Akali leader lamented that instead of addressing the unconstitutional discrimination against the people of Punjab on these issues, successive governments in New Delhi continued to institutionalise this step-motherly treatment against our state through “politics of deceit and discrimination against the patriotic people of Punjab who have always borne the brunt of national security as a border state”.
Badal lambasted the “Delhi based political parties as well as some “pied pipers and agenda-driven opinion makers” who had always been diluting and weakening Punjab’s case by focusing all their energies against those who have been fighting for the state. “Instead of lending their voice to efforts for justice for the state, their sole agenda has been to target SAD day and night. They keep singing the songs handed to them by anti-Punjab forces. They keep repeating that the Akalis never speak for Punjab while in government,” he contended.
“They know they are lying because they know that Parkash Singh Badal as Chief Minister challenged the river water discrimination against Punjab in the Supreme Court. As Chief Minister, he defied the SC orders to construct the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal. Also as chief minister he went against the Supreme Court order and restored the SYL lands to the farmers-free of cost,” said Badal.