India finalises Teesta deal

India's tottering UPA government appears set for a last fling of dice to improve its relations with Bangladesh -- it is finalising the Teesta water sharing accord.

The accord was ready to be signed during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's 2011 Dhaka visit when West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerji's fervent opposition forced Singh to postpone it.

That upset Bangladesh's Sheikh Hasina government which was looking for the second treaty on sharing waters of a common river.

The Ganges water sharing treaty had been signed during Hasina's first tenure.

But Banerji not only refused to join Manmohan Singh's entourage, as the chief ministers of north-eastern states had done. She went ballistic against the treaty, saying West Bengal's interests will be seriously compromised.

Banerji set up a one-man investigation into the Teesta waters with hydrologist Kalyan Rudra, who has since submitted his report.

Rudra recommends 'normal flow of the Teesta' to keep it alive, effectively suggesting no upstream diversion which he thinks might affect the river's very survival.

Banerji is not happy with the report and has shelved it.

But a copy of the Rudra report has now found its way to the Union government, arming Manmohan Singh with a solid defence against any of Banerji's antics in the event of Delhi signing the Teesta water sharing accord with Dhaka.

"We are now well equipped to counter any argument that the accord will compromise West Bengal's interest," said a senior Union government official.

The buzz in the Delhi grapevine is that Manmohan Singh has cleared the process to be taken forward, with or without Banerji's nod.

The idea is to keep the accord ready with some modification over the 2011 draft in mutual consultation with Bangladesh -- so that it can signed during Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's proposed Delhi visit in September this year.

The modifications, said to be minor , is after taking into consideration the observations made by Kalyan Rudra.

Hasina has apparently made it clear to Indian president Pranab Mukherji during his March 2013 Dhaka visit that she will go to Delhi only if India is ready to sign the Teesta water sharing accord.

Manmohan's coalition government is now no longer dependent on Mamata's Trinamul Congress support -- neither is the Congress hopeful of getting her support in the forthcoming 2014 parliament polls in India.

During her panchayat election campaign in West Bengal this month, Banerji has said her primary task is to bring down the UPA government in Delhi in the next election.

The BJP is in touch with her but she is also working out equations with other non-Congress and non-BJP parties for a parallel front.

So Manmohan finds no real reason to oblige Mamata Banerji.

The Union government is also under no constitutional obligations to consult a state government or heed its opinion in such a matter though Prime Minister Devegowda did consult West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu before the Ganges treaty in 1996 and Singh likewise chose to consult Mamata Banerji.

"We are now sure that her opposition has nothing to do with the objective situation. It is for other purpose. So we cannot let down a close neighbour like Bangladesh," the senior official said.

Teesta flows through northern part of West Bengal, where the Congress is much stronger than the Trinamul.

Manmohan has asked some of the strong Congress MPS including union ministers Adhir Choudhury, Abu Hashem Khan Choudhury and Deepa Das Munshi to start a quiet campaign to address public opinion in northern Bengal so that the Trinamul cannot work up trouble if and when the accord is signed.

These MPs are strong critics of Mamata Banerji and resent the way she has treated the Congress in West Bengal.

Manmohan's advantage is he does not seek Opposition support for the Teesta accord.

Unlike in the case of the Land Boundary Agreement signed with Bangladesh, for which the UPA government needs opposition support to clear the constitutional amendment needed to be able to transfer territory, the Teesta accord can be signed and left for implementation for a government that may emerge after the 2014 elections.

The UPA is trying hard to convince the Opposition, specially the BJP which has opposed the Land Boundary Agreement for transfer of the enclaves.

But the Indian media has been largely critical of the BJP's opposition to the Land Boundary agreement with Bangladesh, with a recent edit page article in the 'Times of India' pulling up the Hindu nationalist party's stance on the issue as 'naive and bereft of sense'.