Chandigarh: The BJP national leadership on Friday took on the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Punjab over recent deaths of residents opposing drug peddling with Union home minister Amit Shah announcing that the ministry of home affairs will seek a formal explanation from chief minister Bhagwant Mann’s administration, while party president Nitin Nabin attacked the AAP for “serious failure of governance”.
Pointing to Thursday’s killing of a Batala villager, Bikramjit Singh, 40, for confronting drug peddlers; the broad daylight murder of anti-drug activist Parvinder Singh Jhota in Mansa on October 13; and the suicide of a 50-year-old father in Dirba last month after facing harassment for publicly confronting finance minister Harpal Cheema over rampant heroin sale and his son’s addiction, Shah said the incidents raise serious questions about Punjab’s law and order situation, particularly regarding the state’s growing drug trade, gangsterism, and organised crime.
He called for a crackdown on drug networks and an impartial investigation into alleged political patronage of criminals. The MHA intervention follows the BJP’s 13-day, 4,000-km ‘Nasha Mukt Punjab Yatra’, which spanned all 117 assembly constituencies and culminated in Shah’s rally in Jalandhar on September 30. Framing anti-drug action as the party’s central poll plank, Shah pledged to eliminate the state’s drug trade by December 31, 2029, if the BJP forms the government.
“The home ministry will seek responses from the Punjab government on both these incidents,” the home minister posted on X, questioning who within chief minister Bhagwant Mann’s administration would take ultimate responsibility for public safety. Criticising the state leadership, Shah said the people of Punjab expect decisive action and results rather than announcements.
