ANP fears: Judge’s remark can harm federation

Strongly reacting to the Lahore High Court chief justice’s remarks about construction of controversial Kalabagh Dam, Awami National Party has said that the observations could jeopardise harmony among the federating units. “Does the high court want to convey message of Takht-i-Lahore to three smaller provinces by passing remarks in support of Kalabagh Dam,” said ANP provincial chief Senator Afrasiab Khattak while speaking at a press conference here on Friday. Flanked by provincial ministers and party MPAs, Mr Khattak termed Kalabagh Dam a dead issue and said that assemblies of three federating units had already rejected this contentious project. “I request the high court to stop hearing the case because this is not a legal or constitutional issue,” he maintained. He said that Kalabagh Dam was a technical and political issue and one province wanted to take away smaller provinces share from Indus River. He said that ANP had rendered sacrifices for the independence and supremacy of judiciary and still supported free judiciary. However, remarks of LHC in favour of Kalabagh Dam had created unrest. At least LHC should not hear this case, he added. Media quoted Chief Justice LHC Justice Umar Ata Bandial as saying that objections of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh to the dam’s construction were mere political. Senator Khattak said that observations of the chief justice would trigger controversies among the federating units. “Kalabagh is a matter of life and death for us and we will not allow anybody or institution to sink our civilisation, lands and drown people of the province,” he said. He recalled that devastating floods which caused widespread damages to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2010 was an eye opener for the nation and after that nobody should talk in favour of Kalabagh Dam. He urged the government to execute work on non-controversial power generation projects like Diamer Bhasha and Katzara dams. He opined that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had a potential to generate up to 40,000MW electricity offering the federal government and Wapda to build small dams in northern parts of the province to overcome power crisis in the country. When asked whether ANP would take Kalabagh issue to the Council of Common Interests (CCI), Senator Khattak replied that three elected assemblies had rejected this project and there was no need to take it to CCI. He dispelled the impression that Kalabagh was only an issue among the political parties not provinces. He said that incumbent Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf when he was minister for water and power had stated that Kalabagh project had been buried forever. He claimed that technical experts had also raised reservations about the project because it was not suitable for power generation.