Khattar slams AAP: Hitting back at the Aam Aadmi Party for blaming Haryana for floods in parts of the national capital, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Sunday (July 16) said that finger-pointing is neither good for the state nor the country.
Several AAP leaders have alleged that the BJP-led Haryana government released excess water from the Hathnikund barrage flooding the Yamuna river, which resulted in water flowing onto the streets of Delhi.
Khattar said that the AAP cannot defame Haryana with such allegations.
“This blame game is not good. It is neither in the interest of humanity, nor state or the country,” he said. “It can never occur to anyone to cause harm to someone to protect himself. Only a mean-minded person can do this. Haryana can do ‘sewa’ (serve), but can never think of causing harm to anyone else,” he said.
The Chief Minister said that the Hathnikund barrage’s mechanism does not permit the storage of large volumes of water like a reservoir, and if water is held in the barrage beyond a permissible limit, there could be a “bigger damage”.
Khattar takes a dig at AAP
Stating that various districts of his own state are also reeling under the effects of water, he asked if “we will drown our districts first and then Delhi”.
“It is like hum to dubenge sanam, tumko bhi le dubenge (we will drown, and will take you along),” he said in a lighter vein.
The Chief Minister said that his government too had to evacuate several villages.
The AAP has also alleged that the gates of the ITO barrage in Delhi maintained by the Haryana government had jammed due to silt accumulation. The party demanded its maintenance should be handed over to the Delhi government for more efficient management.
Khattar, on Saturday, former a two-member fact-finding committee to probe the jammed gates of the ITO barrage.
“We checked our records. For its maintenance, money never went from Haryana. That was given by the Indraprastha power plant till 2018 which is shut now, When the plant was shut in 2018, the AAP govt) never said this problem could come. They are talking about it now when the problem arose,” Khattar said.
He said that 6.5-7 lakh cusecs of water were released two years ago from the Hathnikund barrage in a regulated manner.
“On July 11 this year, 3.69 lakh cusecs of water was released. And it spread to six seven Haryana districts before reaching Delhi, yet they (the AAP dispensation) failed to take out the remaining water in Delhi. This means they did not maintain Yamuna. Unauthorised construction on Yamuna blocked water flow,” he said.
“We have set up a committee and said check their systems including Okhla, ITO and encroachments on Yamuna,” Khattar added.
(With PTI inputs)
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