Union minister Nitin Gadkari has said that India will stop water flowing towards Pakistan if Islamabad fails to act against terror, PTI reported. He first mentioned it while campaigning for the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party Anandpur Sahib candidate, Prem Singh Chandumajra, on Wednesday. He reiterated it again during a rally and later at a press conference in Amritsar on the same day.

Gadkari said the basis of the Indus Waters Treaty was peaceful relations between New Delhi and Islamabad. “Pakistan continuously disturbed the peace between both the countries,” alleged Gadkari, reported The Indian Express. “There is no logic of following this treaty. There are six projects which were coined for stopping the flow of water to Pakistan and using it instead for Punjab region. Dashmesh and Kandi Canal were identified for the same and the government is willing to initiate these projects.”

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Gadkari said the water that will be stopped from flowing into Pakistan will be given to Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, reported the Hindustan Times. Punjab will go to polls in the last phase of voting on May 19.

Gadkari had made similar announcements on February 21 after the Pulwama attack in which 40 jawans were killed. In 2016 after the Uri attack, the government had threatened to storm out of the treaty as a punitive action.

The Indus Waters Treaty was signed in 1960. It deals with the six rivers of the Indus water basin. The treaty, mediated by World Bank, gave India “unrestricted use” of the eastern rivers, the Sutlej, Ravi and Beas. Pakistan had unrestricted use of the western rivers, the Chenab, Jhelum and Indus.

The treaty granted India the use of the western rivers for domestic, non-consumptive and agricultural uses. In effect, Pakistan got 80% of the water from the Indus river system and India 20%, or 33 million acre feet out of 168 million acre feet of water.