The Centre Thursday cancelled a function scheduled in Hussainiwala in Ferozepur on Friday to mark 100 years of Gang canal, which supplies water from Punjab to Rajasthan, and asked Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal, who had landed at Amritsar airport late in the evening, to return to Delhi.

The decisions came reportedly after Punjab BJP unit warned the central leadership that sharing of waters with other states was already an emotive issue in state where farmers have in the past led protests against lion’s share of water going to Rajasthan via Gang canal.

The Centre’s U-turn comes soon after it had to backtrack on at least two other controversial decisions pertaining to Punjab — dissolving the senate and syndicate of Panjab University, changing the administrative structure of Chandigarh

See Full Page