SAD Will Terminate All River Water-Share Agreements If It Wins the Punjab Elections: Sukhbir

Sukhbir Singh Badal, the leader of the Shiromani Akali Dal, has said that his party would revoke all river water-sharing agreements with any state if it wins the Punjab election in 2027.

When the Shiromani Akali Dal takes office in 2027, it “will terminate all water-sharing agreements that Punjab has signed with any state, at any time, by any government,” Badal declared on Friday.

He said that the neighboring states, particularly Rajasthan, had no legal claim to the waters of Punjab, but regretted that it was receiving “unfairly” almost to half of our entire water supply.

“At this time, when Punjab is experiencing catastrophic flooding brought on by Himachal’s torrential rainfall, none of these neighboring states has offered to take in more water to help us save our people’s lives, our land, and our animals. I promise the Punjabis that we will make things right, he said to reporters at a celebration in Jalandhar.

He noted that the Riparian Principle also clearly establishes Punjab’s unalienable rights to the river waters that pass through it.

In July 2004, the state Assembly passed the Punjab Termination of Agreement Act, nullifying all inter-state agreements that Punjab had signed on the sharing of the Ravi and Beas rivers. At the time, Amarinder Singh’s cabinet, which was then in the Congress, was in power.

But on November 11, 2016, a constitutional panel of the Supreme Court ruled that the Punjab Termination of Agreement Act, 2004, was unconstitutional in response to the Presidential Reference.