Chandigarh, Oct 14 (PTI) The Punjab Congress on Friday accused Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann of surrendering his authority to the Prime Minister on the Sutlej Yamuna Link canal issue.

A meeting between Punjab CM Mann and his Haryana counterpart Manohar Lal Khattar on Friday failed to reach a consensus over the contentious SYL canal issue.

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Reiterating that Punjab does not even have a single drop of water to share, CM Mann, after the meeting, said in case Haryana faces shortage of water, both Punjab and that state can approach Prime Minister Narendra Modi and request him to arrange water from either Yamuna or Ganga or anywhere else.

Reacting to Mann's statement, Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring said, "It amounts to surrendering your authority to someone else".

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"That is why we had urged him to take everyone into confidence", he said, while adding, "Mann's stand should have been simple and straight that Punjab does not have any spare water to give to anyone else".

The PCC president asked the chief minister as to for what purpose he wanted to approach the Prime Minister. "Suppose the Prime Minister asks you to share our water with Haryana, will you do that," he asked.

Warring said the chief minister, by suggesting to refer the matter to the Prime Minister, whatever reasons (he) may give for that, amounts to complete surrender of Punjab's authority in the matter to the Centre.

The PCC president ridiculed Mann's statements that the SYL was the doing of the previous regimes.

"This is a simplistic statement made in utter ignorance", he said, while asking Mann which chief minister, no matter which party he belonged to, allowed SYL water to flow to Haryana.

In fact, he pointed out, the Congress government in 2004 annulled all the water sharing agreements in this matter even when the Haryana elections were scheduled a few months later.

Meanwhile, BJP leader and former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh asked Mann "not to quote history selectively and out of context".

Besides, he added, he did not need any certificate from the likes of Bhagwant Mann for his commitment towards watching and safeguarding the interests of the nation and that of Punjab.

Referring to Mann showing a 1981 invite about the foundation laying stone of SYL in Patiala district, Amarinder Singh said he was at that time Patiala MP and Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister.

He said 41 years have passed since then and the facts at that time were quite different from what they are now.

He told Mann, like he said himself, that such agreements needed to be reviewed after every 25 years depending on various factors, similarly the situation and circumstances have changed from what these were then and what these are now.

Amarinder Singh said that is the reason that as the chief minister, he enacted the Punjab Termination of Agreement Act in 2004 to secure the water of Punjab from going to the neighbouring states.

Senior Congress Leader and Leader of Opposition (LoP) Partap Singh Bajwa termed the stance of the Bhagwant Mann government over the river waters of the state was not only "weak but also lacked clarity and conviction".

Bajwa said, "Mann during his maiden press conference after he met with his Haryana counterpart Manohar Lal Khattar appeared completely out of sorts as if he had no proper knowledge and understanding of the historical context of the Punjab waters."

"Mann was time and again harping on just one point that since Punjab did not have sufficient water therefore there is no question of the construction of the SYL canal. In other words did he mean if Punjab had sufficient water he would have acceded to the request of Haryana on SYL," asked Bajwa.

Bajwa said Mann, during his media interaction, not even once said that river water was a state subject and "both the Supreme Court as well as the Union government had no constitutional and legal right to arbitrarily decide on the distribution of the river waters between the two states."

Meanwhile, Shiromani Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal said Punjab had an inalienable and exclusive right over its river waters in accordance with the nationally and internationally accepted Riparian Principle and that CM Mann should have stressed this instead of initiating negotiations on the SYL canal with his Haryana counterpart.

In a statement here, the SAD president said "it is shocking that Bhagwant Mann has fallen into the trap laid by Haryana by initiating talks to check the availability of water".

He said this was done despite the fact that "Haryana did not have any locus standi in the case being a non-riparian state".

The Riparian Principle states that the owner of land adjacent to a water body has the right to use the water.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)