Chief Minister ML Khattar gave Bhagwant Mann, Punjab’s new chief minister, a tilak at the Haryana Raj Bhavan ahead of tomorrow’s festival of colours. Bhagwant Mann was in Haryana for the Holi Milan celebration, when the two chief ministers met for the first time after Mann was sworn in as the 17th chief minister of Punjab.
ML Khattar also gave his Punjab counterpart a bouquet. Bhagwant Mann contested as a candidate for the Aam Aadmi Party, which won 92 of the state’s 117 seats in the recently ended Punjab Assembly elections. He was sworn in at a ceremony in Khatkar Kalan, the ancestral village of freedom fighter Bhagat Singh.
This is the first time the AAP has formed a government in a full state since its inception in 2014. The party broke through the Shiromani Akali Dal and the Congress’s long-held bastion to form a government with a sweeping majority. Punjab and Haryana, which share Chandigarh as their capital, have been at conflict for a long time over the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) Canal. On July 28, 2020, the Supreme Court ordered the chief ministers of both states to settle the matter through talks within three weeks. Since then, there have been other rounds of discussions on the subject.
Manohar Lal Khattar raised the Sutlej-Yamuna link canal issue, saying that the new Punjab government now faces a double burden. ‘Water from Punjab will have to be given to Delhi. In such a situation, their accountability to provide water to the SYL canal is more, because now both the states are ruled by the Aam Aadmi Party,’ he said.
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