Lahore:

Pakistan Peoples Party and its allied Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz on Thursday exchanged barbs in Punjab over the question of the construction of six new channels, with the previous warning that the situation was already poor in the two provinces, the channel question can put the third province in the same category.

With protest in Sindh against the construction of six new channels in Punjab, which they feared, would get water out of their share, senior PPP leader Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmad, whose party was in power in Sindh, at a news conference in Lahore, caught up with what he described as a “controversial” project that had the purpose of distributing the companies in the peasants in the peasants on a cost of small growers. He said that PPP would not allow the government to violate the rights of farmers.

Manzoor said water is a sensitive question, so much that Pakistan has a dispute with his neighbor about it.

“You kill small farmers in Punjab in the name of the company’s agriculture, but PPP will not let the athis happen. We will stand with farmers everywhere,” Ahmad told a press conference on the channel’s controversy while without naming the government.

“The situation in the two provinces is already bad, now we will do it in the third too,” he continued. “The water issue in Pakistan is very sensitive. There are many protests in Sindh against the new channels,” he added.

When they counteract the insurance policies that Sindh’s water share would not be affected, he asked from which they draw water to this project from; Will Punjab cut off the supply of some other channels?

He said that Pakistan, who was already a shortage of water by 20 percent, then from which they will water this channel. He said this 20 percent deficit should face all provinces equal.

He said they were told that the canals would get water in floods, so during the nine months when there is no flood water, where will these channels get the water from.

He also asked Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s reluctance to convene a meeting of the Council for Common Interests despite the demands of Sindh and other provinces.

Punjab -Information Minister Azma Bokhari, who responded to the news conference, said Pakistan People’s Party should not bring his internal disputes to the media.

She noted that politicization of canal water has always been a practice of Sindh, while the reality is that PPP must first decide if water it is – Sindhs or Punjabs.

She pointed out that PPP leaders claim to stand with the farmers, but they first had to check if farmers support them.

Bokhari asked, “Can’t you fight for Punjab’s rights while you lived in Punjab?

The Minister emphasized that Punjab neither removes anyone’s rights nor allows others to violate on their own. She claimed that Punjab has always played the role of an older brother, and the story shows that it has never been unfair to anyone.

Bokhari suggested that, instead of questioning the Punjab Chief Minister, it would be more appropriate for PPP to seek clarification from the president of Pakistan about this case.