Amarinder Singh demands President's Rule in Punjab

Chandigarh: Congress Punjab unit chief Amarinder Singh on Thursday demanded imposition of President's Rule in the state in the wake of the SYL verdict and sought early elections, claiming Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal may try to create trouble to further his vested political interests.

"Let there be elections in December," Singh said after sending his resignation from the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat to the Speaker in the wake of the Supreme Court judgement, favouring Haryana in the Sutlej-Yamuna Canal link case.

"We will go to the people over this issue," he said in a statement, adding, "Having failed to safeguard the interests of the people of Punjab, Badal will now try to cause trouble, and so, the sooner he is out of power, the better for the state."

The already fragile situation in the state has been aggravated as a result of this development and is ripe for mischievous elements to whip up trouble, he claimed, adding that terrorist groups from across the border could exploit the situation to create mayhem in the poll-bound state.

"To avoid this, the state should be immediately placed under the Governor's rule and elections should be held by December," he said.

Stating that the Akalis had 10 years to resolve the SYL issue, which they failed to address, Singh added, "It is too late for them to be thinking of ways and means to wriggle out of the situation that is of their own making."

He said that during its decade-long rule, the Badal government should have fought the case effectively and should have battled for the implementation of the riparian principles of water sharing.

"Haryana has no riparian rights on Satluj River, just as Punjab has no such rights on Yamuna river water.

"Had the Badal government fought the case properly, keeping Punjab's interests in view, the situation might have been different today," he said.

Meanwhile, the Congress state chief asked Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is in contest to wrest power in Punjab, to clarify his stand on the SYL issue in the wake of the Supreme Court verdict.

He sought to know whether Kejriwal would allow the water from Punjab to be diverted to Haryana and Delhi.

"Given the fact that he hails from Haryana and is the Chief Minister of Delhi, Kejriwal will never support Punjab on the issue of SYL," he claimed, pointing out that the

Kejriwal government had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court supporting Haryana in the matter.

Pointing to his "contradictory statements" in the past on the SYL issue, he said, "Kejriwal had, time and again exposed his duplicity when it came to issues of concern to the people of Punjab."

Singh recalled that during his Punjab visit Kejriwal had "categorically" said that SYL canal should not be completed, but after returning to Delhi he remarked that "there should be no politics over water".