Bhubaneswar: BJP leader Bijoy Mohapatra on Sunday accused the Centre of being "partisan" towards Chhattisgarh and ignoring the interests of Odisha in its affidavit on the Mahanadi water-sharing dispute in the Supreme Court.

The central government has rejected the plea of Odisha to set up a tribunal to settle the differences between the two states. The statement of the veteran leader, who was a former water resources minister of the state, has caused much embarrassment to the BJP state unit.

Mohapatra said: "A conspiracy has been hatched against Odisha at the behest of Chhattisgarh and it has the nod of the Centre."

Union petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan, on the other hand, said: "The Centre has never said no to the tribunal. Cases are pending before tribunals for years. Now the Centre planned to bring in a new legislation to set up a unified tribunal and all the cases will be referred to it. There is a clause that the dispute will be solved within three years."

Pradhan said: "Odisha can appeal against the Centre's petition. If the court gives its verdict for a tribunal, no one can stop it. Some people are bringing allegations against the Centre. They are doing it just to abdicate their responsibility." Pradhan refused to comment on Mohapatra's statement although one of his party colleagues, Prithviraj Harichandan, gave enough indications that the BJP was not happy with the statement. Mohapatra's outburst comes at a time when the BJD is sparing no efforts to whip up the passions of people against the central government for its "partisan attitude" towards Odisha. The BJP in the state has been virtually cornered on the issue.

Mohapatra pointed out that Odisha had filed the petition in the apex court to constitute a tribunal in November 2016. He said: "In the last one year, the Centre did not raise any objection and seek any clarification from the state. Suddenly, it has come up with a number of queries which clearly indicates that the Centre is taking a partisan role."

The Centre's argument that the tribunal is not required is also at variance with the statement of the Union water resources minister Sanjeev Balyan in Parliament in which he had argued for setting up a tribunal to settle the water dispute on July 31, 2017, Mohapatra said.

Mohapatra claimed that due to construction of barrages by Chhattisgarh, the flow in the Mahanadi stream has been badly hit. "There is depletion of water level in all most all the branches of Mahanadi by this December. While 10,000 cusec of water used to flow through Mahanadi near Jobra bridge in Cuttack during this time, it has come down to 4,000 cusec. One can judge what will happen in May," he said.

BJD spokesperson Pratap Deb said Chhattisgarh will face elections next year and the BJP-run Union government has deliberately taken a partisan approach on the issue.