LAHORE: Former Interior Minister and senior PPP leader Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan has said no federating unit can forcibly decide the canal water share of the others.

Talking to the media at the wedding ceremony of the daughter of a local party leader, Abid Siddiqu, he said: `No brother can decide the water share of other brothers even if one of them has a tank or an aircraft.

This he said indirectly referring to the `big brother` status usually claimed by Punjab.

He said that President Asif Ali Zardari gave his clear stance on the new canals in his address to the joint session of theParliament, while the minutes of an informal conversation show as if the president gave his consent to the project.

Mr Ahsan said that the government should have the courage to tell people from which districts of Punjab water would be provided to Cholistan canal.

Using an analogy of rivers and jugs, he explained that there are five jugs in Punjab, and the rulers should tell which one or two jugs would be emptied to pour water into a new jug.

`Then they (the rulers) say that all the water and land are being taken over by an institution. They tell us that if we talk about canals, we are enemies of the country.

PPP Central Punjab chapter General Secretary SyedHassan Murtaza has said that if his party has to scarify the governments of Sindh and Balochistan on the canals issue, it should do so. He said that water is not just a problem of Sindh and Punjab, it is a problem of Pakistan.

`The problem is more of Punjab than Sindh. We are already getting 20 percent less water from Irsa (Indus River System Authority).

He asl(ed if no new water reservoir is built, from where the water will flow into the new canals.

Murtaza said that the government has created such a serious crisis that may render fertile lands barren. He added the PPP cannot afford to remain silent on this issue because it is a problem of the common man`s food security.