Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar lashed out at his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal amid an war of words over the continuing water crisis in the national capital. Addressing the media, Khattar said that Delhi has a habit of blaming Haryana for everything, be it pollution or any other problem.

Delhi had earlier accused Haryana of withholding Delhi’s share of water following a water crisis in the national capital. Khattar claimed that not a single drop from Delhi’s share had been stopped by Haryana.

Khattar said that Haryana is providing water to Delhi despite facing a problem itself. The Haryana CM claimed that the state gets 2,000 cusecs of water from the Yamuna and releases 1,050 cusecs to Delhi.

The Delhi government yesterday said that Haryana had released water in the Yamuna after it apporached the Supreme Court seeking the release of water.

CM Khattar, however, claimed that Haryana has been releasing the allocated share of water to Delhi as per the Supreme Court’s decision. “Haryana is facing a lot of problems because it needs water as much as Delhi does. Where Haryana has a population of 2.90 crore, Delhi has 2 crore people,” said Khattar.

Hitting out at the Arvind Kejriwal government, Khattar said that AAP should hand over Delhi to Haryana if it cannot manage the national capital. “If there is something they can’t understand, they put the blame on Haryana…if you cannot manage Delhi, give it to Haryana, we will manage it,” he said.

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Delhi Jal Board Vice-Chairperson Raghav Chadha had said the Haryana government only released 16,000 cusecs of water after the Delhi government filed a petition in the top court.

“BIG VICTORY FOR DELHI!! After constant pressure from Kejriwal Govt, including a petition in the Supreme Court- BJP’s Haryana Govt has been compelled to release 16,000 cusecs of water for Delhi. This will bring a huge relief to Delhiites in the upcoming days,” said Chadha in a tweet.

The AAP legislator had also claimed that water level in the Yamuna was at its lowest point in 56 years. “Amidst severe water shortage in Delhi, I visited Wazirabad Barrage today to inspect the raw water discharged by Haryana. I found out that the water level of River Yamuna has fallen to the lowest since 1965. Haryana has withheld 120MGD from Delhi’s legitimate share of water,” Chadha had said.