Capt blames Badals for drug scourge
Sunday, 28/06/2015
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TO TACKLE THE MENACE OF DRUGS IN PUNJAB, THE CHIEF MINISTER SHOULD GO INTO AN INTROSPECTION MODE RATHER THAN DENIAL, SAYS AMARINDER
PATIALA: Congress Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha Capt Amarinder Singh on Saturday said the countdown for Badals’ ‘paschatap’ (penance) for ‘all their sins’ had begun.
“The day is not that far when you will run for cover and you won’t get it,” Amarinder told chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal in a statement issued here
Amarinder said the BJP’s concern over the increasing drug addiction in the state was genuine and Badal was doing no good to anyone by denying the problem.
“Synthetic drugs produced and distributed under Akalis’ patronage have hit Punjab more than drugs such as heroin that are smuggled from across the border,” alleged Amarinder.
Reacting to Sukhbir Badal’s statement that he should go for ‘paschatap yatra’ instead of Punjab yatra, Amarinder said: “The entire state knows who should be doing ‘paschatap’. The anger and outrage against the Badals is so deep that even if they (the Badals) ask for forgiveness, people will not pardon them.”
To tackle the menace of drugs in Punjab, the chief minister should go into an introspection mode rather than denial.
“When Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi said the same thing (about drug problem) few years ago at Panjab University, the Akalis accused him of defaming Punjab. Now, their alliance partner is saying the same thing,” said Amarinder.
“You can’t just shut your eyes to your problems. It doesn’t help and only makes things more complicated,” he said.
“The root cause of drug problem in Punjab is that the business is being promoted and patronised by your leaders,” Amarinder told Badal.
CAPT TO ADDRESS RALLY ON BAJWA TURF
GURDASPUR: As part of his statewide mass-contact programme, former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh will address a Congress rally on Thursday (July 2) at Nehru Park here, in the constituency of state party president Partap Singh Bajwa, his biggest rival within the party. Local Congress leader Raman Bahl said here on Saturday that hundreds of party activists from the Gurdaspur assembly constituency would attend the proposed “Halla Bol” rally, in which state leader of opposition Sunil Kumar Jakhar and party legislators would also be present. The rally aimed at exposing the “failures of the Akali-BJP government”, he said. Bahl accused local Akali legislator Gurbachan Singh Babbehali of created an atmosphere of terror in the Gurdaspur assembly constituency and charged the administration with playing a mute spectator to the leader’s alleged atrocities against the Congress workers. On June 2, members of the land mafia had injured Bahl here because he supported the poor owners of more than 30 residential plots that the mafia had grabbed in Gopal Nagar locality. Two of the accused were arrested, but the third, Sajjan Singh of Qadian, remains at large. The matter will be highlighted at the July 2 rally.
