New Delhi, Oct 15 Congress leader Sachin Pilot has slammed the AAP and the BJP over the drug problem in Punjab, saying the situation is so bad that “chitta” gets delivered at people’s doorstep on a phone call faster than “pizza” and “Coca-Cola”.
The AICC general secretary in-charge of Punjab also lashed out at the Bhagwant Mann government over the law-and-order situation in the border state, claiming that even in the darkest days of terrorism, police stations were never attacked but now there were grenades being lobbed at police stations and police officers being shot.
Pilot said that this “collapse” of law and order is linked with “narco money”.
While the opposition in Punjab has slammed the AAP government over the drugs problem and law-and-order situation, the Mann-led dispensation has dismissed the charges as politically motivated.
In an interview with PTI Videos, Pilot said, “There is an unlimited supply of ‘chitta’ (drugs), as they call it in Punjab, and chemical drugs are coming into Punjab from across the border. And funnily enough, the BJP, which is ruling from Delhi for the last 12 years, is saying ‘we will make Punjab ‘nasha-mukt’.”
“What about the drugs that are coming in from across the border? What has the home ministry been doing? …Rs 21,000 crore worth of cocaine was seized from Mundra Port in Gujarat. This was seized. So one can imagine how much drugs would have come in,” he said.
This amount of haul of captured drugs from an international port is a very telling sign of how things have shaped out, the Congress leader said.
“Once the drugs reach the Punjab border, how can they be distributed down to the village and mohallas without the consent of the mafia that operates between the police, the administration and the politicians, it is impossible,” he said.
“People in Punjab say that if you want to order pizza or a coke, it takes half an hour or 40 minutes but one can call and get ‘chitta’ home delivered faster,” Pilot claimed.
He said the drug problem is actually making the entire young generation hollow.
The AAP had claimed that it would get rid of the drugs problem in Punjab within three months of forming the government, he said.
“Forget getting rid of it. They made it so much worse now. It’s actually very disturbing to see visuals of addicts…there are also the zombie drugs, young boys and girls are becoming addicts. So many addiction centres have opened but no one is going there,” Pilot said.
The government has failed on the law and order front completely and in controlling drugs, he added.
Attacking the AAP government, Pilot said police recorded 324 encounters with gangsters between April 2022 and November 2025, roughly one every four days.
Over 30 grenade attacks and blasts have been reported since September 2024, most of them on police stations and posts, he claimed.
Noting that the last election in Punjab was a very different one, Pilot said the AAP sold this narrative of hope and change but “betrayed” the people.
“If you look at the data, where Punjab stands today, forget the propaganda and the advertisements and the television and the newspaper ads, hard facts in Punjab today are actually disturbing,” he said.
Pilot said the police itself claimed that at the end of 2025, more than 400 gang modules were still operating and nearly 40 foreign-based gangsters were trying to foment violence in the state.
Pointing out that several targeted killings had taken place in public view, Pilot said the ruling party cannot protect its own with two AAP sarpanches from Tarn Taran shot dead at weddings in January and February, and AAP leader Lucky Oberoi shot dead outside a gurdwara in Jalandhar in February as well.
“The infestation of gang culture in Punjab is actively promoting disharmony by inflicting violence and enabling drug abuse,” he claimed.
Pilot said Punjab and Punjabis have contributed much to this country and the world historically, socially and culturally.
“It’s an important state, not just for my party, but for my country, and what they’ve (AAP) done to Punjab really is shocking. After getting a huge majority, all they had to do was to just deliver on some of the promises they made, but they made it so bad,” he said.
With elections due early next year, Punjab is heading for a multi-cornered contest, with AAP looking to retain power, and the Congress wanting to wrest the state by keeping the SAD and the BJP at bay.
(PTI News)
