West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is regarded responsible for not signing the Indo-Bangla Teesta water-sharing pact, has again started playing politics with the issue.
Also the Trinamool Congress chief, Mamata at an election rally yesterday urged the people to teach the central government a lesson “through ballots” as “the centre wanted to deprive the people of [India’s] north Bengal of drinking water by giving away Teesta water [to Bangladesh].”
She made the call while addressing election rallies in Dinhata of Cooch Behar district and Jalpaiguri of Jalpaiguri district in north Bengal of India.
“Mamata accused the central government of trying to deprive the state’s northern parts of drinking water and asked the people to teach it a lesson,” reports Zee News.
Referring to the yet-to-be-inked Teesta water sharing deal between the two neighbours, Mamata said: “Teesta has dried up. There is acute drinking water problem. Yet, the central government was giving away Teesta water.”
She also hit out at the central government of trying to impose its decisions without public consent.
The Teesta water agreement has been put on hold after the Trinamool’s strong opposition, which has expressed fears that the treaty could spell disaster for north Bengal.
In September 2011, Mamata had embarrassed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh by pulling herself out of a delegation visiting Bangladesh to settle the water sharing agreement. Her decision prompted India to drop the issue from the agenda.
At a meeting with Manmohan on the sidelines of Bimstec Summit on March 4, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina emphasised on early completion of Teesta water sharing agreement and hoped that the land boundary agreement would be ratified as soon as possible. The Indian premier assured Hasina of looking into the issue.
The Bangladesh government has flagged its concern over the drastic fall of Teesta water in the recent months. Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque raised the issue while meeting his Indian counterpart Sujatha Singh and the Indian water resources secretary on March 20.
Sujatha on Teesta water said they were taking it very seriously and had already asked the technical people concerned to immediately look into it. She informed that they were in the process of building necessary domestic consensus for signing the Teesta agreement.
Demonstrations have been staged recently in Dhaka and at the Teesta Barrage in Lalmonirhat district following reports that the northern districts of Bangladesh are drying up because of low or no flow of Teesta water as the Indian side is withdrawing water from the common river unilaterally. Different political parties and organisations have also announced long march programmes this month demanding equitable share of the Teesta water.
On the land boundary agreement, under which 162 adversely held enclaves are to be exchanged between the two countries, Mamata said: “We cannot impose decisions on people. It is up to the public to decide the fate of Chhitmahal [enclaves].”
The Mamata government has always opposed any move to hand over to the neighbouring nation 111 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh in exchange for 51 Bangladeshi enclaves in India. The regime has argued that West Bengal would lose more land than it would get from Bangladesh. She had expressed strong reservations over the introduction of the Land Boundary Agreement Bill in the Rajya Sabha last December.
The Land Boundary Agreement between the two nations was signed in 1974, while the neighbours concluded an enabling pact in 2011 during Manmohan’s trip to Dhaka. Attacking the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), she said it only talked of enclaves “and other divisive issues” during elections.
Mamata said the previous Left Front government had not done anything either, but her government was undertaking survey and census.
