BHUBANESWAR: A day after the Centre constituted a negotiation committee to resolve the Mahanadi river water dispute, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and Congress rejected it by alleging that the move was politically motivated and meant to help Chhattisgarh. Formation of the committee was announced by the Centre to minimise the damage to the state BJP in the ensuing panchayat polls after the party revised the list of its star campaigners and included Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh's name in it, BJD spokeperson Pratap Deb said.
he BJD is not sure to what extent such a committee will be able to resolve the dispute as meetings between the chief ministers and chief secretaries of the two states have failed in the past, he said and added that Odisha's demand to ask Chhattisgarh to stop work on ongoing projects has been overlooked by the Centre again. Alleging that the Centre does not really want a solution to the problem, the BJD leader said it is only complicating the matter further. Deb said the Centre is tacitly supporting the Chhattisgarh government by allowing it to complete all the projects, he said and added that the terms of reference of the committee is yet to received by Odisha. Describing the move as politically motivated ahead of the panchayat polls, Congress chief whip in the assembly Tara Prasad Bahinipati demanded that the Centre should constitute a tribunal to resolve the dispute between Odisha and Chhattisgarh. The Odisha government should reject the negotiation committee announced by the Centre, he said. The state BJP, however, rejected the allegation that the Centre has violated the model code of conduct by announcing the formation of the committee. The negotiation committee will find a way to resolve the issue, state unit president of the BJP Basant Panda said.