Punjab's folly

The Punjab government’s decision to get the state assembly to annul the agreement with Haryana and Rajasthan on sharing the waters of the Ravi-Beas is extremely unfortunate.

Junking the agreement (which was co-signed by Indira Gandhi when she was prime minister) signals a return to the days of the wild west when each state felt free to pursue its own narrow self-interest, irrespective of the damage it causes others.

Indeed, if other states like Haryana, for instance, decide to follow the same logic and decide to deny water to Delhi, the consequences can only be grave. Extend the example to areas like supplies of coal, steel and the movement of labour, and the picture gets a lot scarier.

Indeed, the Punjab move looks suspiciously like an attempt to avoid complying with the Supreme Court’s ruling on handing over the construction of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal to the Centre, the deadline for which is just two days away. The court’s ruling came in the wake of Punjab’s claims that it had no money to complete the canal, effectively stalling the release of water to states like Haryana. Ironically, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh justified the move to annul the agreement, saying that it was based on legal advice to make Punjab’s case stronger. That claim strains credulity given the proximity of the Supreme Court deadline.

What makes the move even more unfortunate, of course, is that it is a Congress-ruled state that is behaving in this manner. Given that the same party is in power at the Centre, albeit with a rainbow coalition, the least one would have expected is for either Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or party leader Sonia Gandhi to counsel Punjab against showing disrespect to the highest court in the land.

If a Congress-ruled state can freely cock a snook at the Supreme Court, how can better conduct be expected from other states? The Congress may take comfort in the fact that the annulment was supported in the legislature by the BJP-SAD alliance, but this argument does not hold water.

Opposition parties may or may not feel compelled to back a court ruling that may go against popular opinion, but ruling parties have no option but to stick to the straight and narrow.

In the SYL case, too, it is not too late for the Congress’ central leadership to step in and ask Amarinder Singh to pull back from the brink. This way, it can avoid the embarrassment of precipitating a constitutional crisis, as Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala has predicted. Some 13 years ago, when the Karnataka government tried to avoid sharing Cauvery waters, the Court simply struck down the annulment.

More recently, former Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna had to apologise to the Supreme Court for failing to release water to Tamil Nadu.

One hopes the Congress high command will not court similar embarrassment by failing to rein in a recalcitrant state government.