Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot often writes to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, raising issues that range from Covid management and Centre-state relations to the state’s share of the Goods and Services Tax. He has especially been prolific in writing about the Eastern Rajasthan Canal Project—an ambitious scheme to supply water from the Chambal basin to 13 eastern and southeastern districts.
The Rs40,451-crore canal project has been stalled since 2017, when it was first proposed by the BJP government led by Vasundhara Raje. The delay in implementing the project is now a hot-button issue, thanks to Gehlot. He wants Modi, who had backed the proposal while campaigning for the 2018 assembly polls, to green-light the project immediately and grant it national status to ensure speedy implementation. With assembly polls due next year, Gehlot’s demands have sparked a war of words between the Congress and the BJP.
The project envisages a series of canals that would drain excess water from Chambal to other river basins, improving irrigation, ensuring drinking water supply, and meeting the needs of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor that passes through Rajasthan. The problem is that the Chambal water cannot be tapped without the Centre’s help. The area around Kota barrage, for instance, is a crocodile sanctuary where no construction is permitted within a radius of 1.5km from the centre of the river.
The original proposal was to complete the project in three phases from 2017 to 2023. Modi had declared his support for it in 2018. But, after the Congress defeated the BJP in the assembly polls, the project has seen little progress. It also lacked political buzz, until Gehlot revived it in a big way. The state government allocated around Rs9,600 crore to the project this year, even though the Centre is yet to approve it and sanction funds.
Gehlot is demanding national status for the project to ensure a Centre-state funding ratio of 90:10. Else, the Centre will only have to bear 60 per cent of the cost, with the state paying the rest.
Interestingly, the person responsible for clearing the project is Union Water Resources Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, who is a Gehlot baiter representing Jodhpur in the Lok Sabha. The water resources ministry recently asked Rajasthan to halt work on the canal citing lack of consent of Madhya Pradesh, a riparian state. It wants the state government to rework the project so that Madhya Pradesh’s concerns regarding water sharing are addressed. But Rajasthan has stuck to the original proposal, terming the concerns as baseless.
“The project specifications are in keeping with the understanding reached at an interstate meeting in 2005,” said Rajasthan Water Resources Minister Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya. “Hence there is no need for a no-objection certificate from Madhya Pradesh.”
State Congress president Govind Dotasara said Shekhawat had no interest in implementing the project. “His ministry wrote to the state government to stop work on the project, even though it fulfilled all parameters. He should make full use of his power in the interest of the state, and get the rules amended to make up for technical deficiencies, if there are any,” he said.
Dotasara said work on the project would not stop. “The state government is not begging for the national project status; we are demanding our right,” he said.
Gehlot is keen to turn this into a win-win situation for himself. “If the Union government clears the project, he would take credit for it. If the Centre further delays the go-ahead, he would blame the BJP,” said political analyst Manish Godha.
The personal rivalry between Gehlot and Shekhawat makes the battle even more interesting. Jodhpur is Gehlot’s stronghold and Shekhawat, who is viewed as a potential chief minister, had defeated Gehlot’s son Vaibhav in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Gehlot had also accused Shekhawat of stoking a rebellion against him led by former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot in 2020.
With protests being held by both the Congress and the BJP, the political activity around the canal project remains hectic. Having already held an all-party meeting to discuss the issue, the Gehlot government now plans to convene a special session of the assembly. Gehlot is trying to corner the BJP-led Union government, and the BJP is accusing him of playing politics to hide his government’s failure in not drawing up a sound proposal.
“The chief minister called the all-party meeting when both the leader of the opposition and the state BJP president were away on tour,” said BJP leader Abhinesh Maharshi. “It is evident that he only wanted to play politics. If he is sincere, he should ensure that the proposal sticks to the guidelines.”
Observers say the wrangle over the canal project is rooted in electoral calculations. The 13 districts that stand to benefit from the project account for 40 per cent of the state’s population and 85 assembly seats. In 2018, the Congress had outperformed the BJP in this region.
A state Congress leader said Gehlot’s crusade for the canal project is also aimed at blunting the challenge from Pilot, who wields considerable influence in several districts of eastern Rajasthan. The project has given Gehlot a political opportunity, and he apparently wants to make the most of it.