Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has reacted to Delhi Minister Atishi's suspicions of 'conspiracy' concerning the release of water from the Hatnikund barrage, stating "they cannot defame Haryana with such allegations."
Khattar lashed out at the AAP minister on Sunday, urging her to avoid such a blame game. "Haryana can do 'sewa' (serve), but can never think of causing harm to anyone else," he said.
Khattar's statement came after Atishi raised questions as to "why the water from Hathnikund was not diverted to Haryana and UP despite it going to Delhi, Haryana and UP."
"Even though in Delhi the water level was crossing the danger mark, not a single drop of water was diverted to Haryana & UP, why? Was it because these 2 states are BJP-ruled? BJP must answer...was this a conspiracy against the people of Delhi?" Atishi asked reporters on Sunday.
Her claim drew the ire of the BJP and Khattar, who said the blame game was 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," Khattar told reporters on Sunday.
He said that many districts in Haryana were too affected by the water. "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.
He said his government too had to evacuate many villages. "Our Karnal, Sonipat, Panipat, Faridabad and Palwal were affected (due to the rise in Yamuna waters."
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.
However, Khattar said that records proved that the money for the maintenance never went from Haryana. "That was given by the Indraprastha power plant till 2018 which is shut now," Khattar said.
"Two years ago, 6.5-7 lakh cusecs of water was released from Hathnikund barrage in a regulated manner," he said. "On July 11 this year, 3.69 lakh cusecs of water was released. And it spread to six or 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," said Khattar.
Union Minister Meenakshi Lekhi too trained her guns on the AAP government, stating that people should not make false statements. She said Atishi was not telling the truth. Lekhi added that no meeting has happened with the flood control department which resulted in the current situation.
"The District Magistrate, who is supposed to be the coordinator for the meeting, wrote to CM Kejriwal to join the meeting. The CM was not present on the dates decided stating that he was busy with election campaigns in Rajasthan. They are experts at blame game," she added.
Assam chief minister and BJP leader Himanta Sarma too hit out AAP. "Water doesn't know any geography. We also receive water from Arunachal Pradesh, China and Bhutan but we do not criticise them as we believe that this is a natural phenomenon and we have to set a scientific response for it,” Assam chief minister told reporters.