With an aim to pressurise the Centre to take steps for completion of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal, Haryana’s principal Opposition party, the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) has announced to stage a massive rally in national capital Delhi, next month.

While addressing a Press conference on Thursday, Leader of Opposition in Haryana Assembly, Abhay Singh Chautala said that his party would hold “Adhikar Rally” in Delhi on 7 March to press the Centre government for completion of the canal so that the Haryana could get its due share of water from the neighbouring state Punjab.

He said, “From the very beginning, the INLD has been fighting for Haryana’s water through the SYL canal but the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government, both at Centre and Haryana have failed to do the fruitful in this regard. Now we have decided to build pressure on Centre with a massive rally in Delhi.”

Chautala said that it was unfortunate that the Haryana government had failed to convince the Centre to implement the decision of the Supreme Court in this regard. Even the BJP president Amit Shah during his recent visit to Haryana did not utter a single word on the important issue of SYL.

We met the president, the Union Water Resource minister and the Home minister requesting them to ensure SYL canal’s completion, however, returned empty-handed as none of these offices assured us on this front, Chautala added.

The senior INLD leader further announced that his party would also move an adjournment motion in coming Session of Haryana Assembly on the SYL to hold a debate over the issue and hold the government accountable.

Apart from this, the INLD would also raise the raise the issue of non-availability of water to Mewat regions and scrapping of the Dadupur-Nalvi canal, he said.

The Ellenabad MLA also condemned the Haryana government for convening of the Budget Session on 5 March as the INLD would be occupied in the preparations of its “Adhikar Rally” scheduled for 7 March.

The state government had deliberately chosen the dates of the Budget Session in order to keep the INLD members away from the Assembly on crucial days but the INLD would not fail in discharging its duty of safeguarding the state’s interests on the floor of the House, he added.

Taking a dig over the ruling party’s “Yuva Hunkar Rally” held in Jind on 15 February, Chautala alleged that the government had spent more than Rs 50 Crore on organising the said rally and the massive mobilisation of the security forces and para-military forces was to intimidate the people and bolster the attendance of the Jind rally, which however, had succeeded in mirroring the absence of any public support to the BJP.