The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday vowed to completely eradicate the drug menace from Punjab within two years of coming to power in the state.
Even Aam Aadmi Party supremo Arvind Kejriwal, before the 2022 assembly polls, had announced to end the menace within six months of coming to power in Punjab. “If the BJP under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah can finish naxalism and can end Section 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, why can’t the drug problem be eradicated in Punjab in two years? The home minister has already given a commitment to the nation of making the country drug-free by 2029,” said Dhillon.
Announcing the schedule, Punjab BJP president Kewal Singh Dhillon said the yatra would focus on three major challenges confronting Punjab—“the drug menace, the deteriorating law and order, and corruption at every level of governance”. He said the campaign was not merely an anti-drug awareness exercise but an effort to confront what he described as a grave threat to “Punjabiyat, culture, values, courage and the proud identity of the land of the Gurus”. The drug crisis was tearing families apart, particularly causing immense pain to mothers and sisters, while pushing Punjab’s youth towards addiction, he said.
Dhillon, along with party’s national vice-president Manpreet Singh Badal, former state president Sunil Jakhar and MLA Ashwani Sharma, also unveiled the campaign’s logo during the schedule announcement. This is not the first time that a political party has promised a deadline to end the drug menace plaguing Punjab. “The BJP wants to make it a social movement. This strategy has backfired as rehabilitation has taken a back seat.
The present government has only focused on registering 77,000 FIRs and arresting even users.
Before the 2017 assembly polls, then Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee chief Captain Amarinder Singh, who went on to become the chief minister, had sworn with a Gutka Sahib in his hands to “break the backbone of drug menace within one month of coming to power”. Manpreet Badal said people should not see this campaign through a political lens. We need to crack down on the business of drugs which this government has failed to do,” said Badal.
