It was the first time in 52 days as prime minister that the mild Dr Manmohan Singh actually lost his temper. "Are we running a country or what? We will not allow the mockery of the Constitution," he reportedly fumed. At the receiving end was neither an Opposition leader nor one of his more troublesome cabinet colleagues but a Punjab da puttar like himself: Congress chief minister Amarinder Singh. He had cause enough to be provoked: at one stroke, without a word of warning either to Manmohan or to party chief Sonia Gandhi, Amarinder Singh's government passed a bill—the Punjab Termination of Agreements Bill, 2004—that wipes away all water-sharing pacts between Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. "Whatever your logic for taking this step, I am not going to endorse it," the prime minister apparently told Punjab's unrepentant chief minister.
But temper aside, the two Sikhs seem to have quickly grasped where their interests lie. "I told him (PM) that I had done what I had to do from the state perspective. The PM will have to decide keeping in view the national perspective," says Amarinder Singh.
On his part, the PM summoned the chief ministers of all the four states affected by the bombshell bill. The one-hour, closed-door, one-on-one meetings seem to have worked for the moment. Both Rajasthan CM Vasundhararaje and Himachal Pradesh CM Virbhadra Singh went away reasonably satisfied, although Vasundhararaje asserted her government would take legal action against Punjab.
According to PMO sources, Manmohan's strategy would be two-pronged: to explore the legal options while doing some firefighting on the political front. The Centre has gone to the Supreme Court asking for direction. There are other legal options, of course, such as examining the constitutionality of the Punjab Assembly's decision. There is a third, very remote, possibility of the Punjab government not notifying the bill and thus allowing it to lapse, an option that Amarinder is so far not in a mood to use.
PMO sources say Manmohan is weighing his options. "It's a complex problem and the PM is spending a lot of time meeting all those concerned, and it may take months to sort out," says a PMO offcial.
The Weight Of Water
A livid PM looks at legal options to get out of the Punjab mess
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