Punjab Congress Chief Amarinder Singh today said Congress MLAs in Punjab will resign en mass in case the Supreme Court verdict in the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal case goes against the state.
"While we respect the Supreme Court, we are also duty bound towards Punjab, hence we will find legislative and constitutional ways to safeguard our water which includes mass resignation by our MLAs", Singh told a press conference here.
The PCC president said, after submitting their resignation along with his from the parliament, Congress party will go to people seeking their vote and support.
In case the verdict goes against Punjab and it orders construction of the SYL, Punjab will be left with no option. Not only will over ten lakh acres of Malwa region go dry, people wouldn't even have water to drink, he said.
Amarinder said this will only be because of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's failure to act on time.
"Either his (Badal's) intentions were not honest or they were not clear, which made him vacillate and waste crucial time in getting the Governor's assent to the unanimous resolution of the Vidhan Sabha on SYL, thus providing enough time to Haryana to move the SC," he observed.
There are always constitutional and legal means which must be exercised which Badal unfortunately squandered, he added.
Jalandhar MP Chaudhary Santokh Singh said he will also resign with Amarinder and the party legislators.
The PCC president warned Badal against any "mischief" that could imperil peace the state.
Singh said, it was the Congress government in 2004
which enacted the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act that saved its waters.
"It is by virtue of the act that Punjab has managed to save its waters for last 12 years and now when the responsibility was with Badal, he failed to rise to the occasion," he said.
The PCC president alleged that Badal's stand on SYL had always been equivocal.
The former Punjab Chief Minister also accused Arvind Kejriwal of playing the "most dubious role" as he changed his stand and statement on the SYL issue within a span of 24 hours.
He said while in Punjab, the Delhi Chief Minister said the state had no spare water and SYL should not be constructed. He changed his stand the moment he landed in Delhi and said the canal should be constructed, Singh said.
Besides, his (Kejriwal) legal counsel also supported Haryana's case in the Supreme Court and everything is on record, he added.
Singh reiterated his appeal to the SC judges that before pronouncing the final judgment, they must assess the availability of water afresh and not base it on the assessment that was made decades ago.
The Eradi panel had wrongly assessed the availability of water at 18 MAF (million acre feet), since that much water never flowed in Punjab, he said.
He contended that when the measurements were taken, there were floods in Punjab which wrongly reflected the water level. The actual availability of water currently is 13 MAF only.
