BHUBANESWAR: Advocate general Pitambar Acharya on Thursday stirred a hornet’s nest by stating that the Mahanadi river water dispute between Odisha and Chhattisgarh was artificially created for political optics.
Talking to mediapersons, Acharya said the state government fought the case in tribunal for nearly seven years, but nothing has come out of it so far. “No water dispute cases have been easily resolved through tribunals in the country. Legal battles are fought only to patronise lawyers,” he said.
Stating that renowned lawyers were hired by the previous government for which around Rs 33 crore was spent from the state exchequer, the advocate general said that now the lawyers have been disengaged. “We hope the matter will be resolved in a constructive atmosphere with due mediation of the Centre,” he added.
The AG said that an artificial legal battle was created ahead of the elections only to score political points, and sincere efforts to resolve the dispute started only after the BJP government came to power in the state.
Meanwhile, the BJD strongly reacted to the statement on Thursday. “If the dispute was artificially created, it would have taken a minute for the BJP government to resolve it. Why there has been no resolution of the dispute even after 15 months of BJP government in the state?” said BJD spokesperson Lenin Mohanty.
Mohanty said that the advocate general is a constitutional position and persons holding this office generally refrain from making political statements. “Acharya’s statement today is clearly politically motivated and is aimed at blaming the previous government,” he added.