Capt Amarinder slams Akali Dal’s ‘innocent mistake’ theory for clearing SYL file

Punjab Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh on Monday slammed the reported “innocent mistake” theory floated by the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) about chief minister Parkash Singh Badal having cleared the file for the construction of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal in 1978.
“Presuming that it was an innocent mistake, which actually it was not as it was done with deliberate design, will you (CM Badal) apologise to people of Punjab for the cardinal sin you committed by robbing them of their precious water and giving it away to Haryana just to please your friend?” Amarinder asked in a press statement.
“I think you must apologise as otherwise the burden of betrayal will be too huge and heavy for your feeble and aged shoulders to carry on any further,” he said, referring to the Akali Dal general secretary and Lok Sabha MP Prem Singh Chandumajra’s admission in Patiala on Sunday, wherein he claimed that clearing the SYL file was an “innocent mistake” Badal had committed.
“It is a clear case of admission on part of Badal made through his general secretary and that too in his characteristic manner by claiming he was cheated into doing it,” said Amarinder.
Wondering how a CM could play into the hands of “the clever babus in the secretariat” and clear such an important file in routine manner, without having studied it, as claimed by Chandumajra, the state Congress chief said the actual story was different as “Badal had signed and cleared the SYL file consciously and knowingly”.