Chandigarh, Sep 24 Senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Tarun Chugh on Thursday criticised the AAP government over Punjab’s deepening drug crisis, deteriorating law and order, and the rising menace of extortion rackets being run from jails.
As the Bharatiya Janata Party’s ongoing “Nasha Mukt Punjab Yatra” covered the Amritsar Central, Amritsar South, and Amritsar East assembly constituencies on Thursday, Chugh while addressing the gathering, said Punjab today is reeling “under the burden of the drug menace, with drugs now being available freely in the market”.
“The law-and-order situation had worsened to the point where police are shielding drug peddlers, and that whistleblowers are being silenced. Mothers are losing their sons and sisters are losing their brothers, and this is not the story of one household but of every household in Punjab,” he said.
The BJP leader said a state once known for its sportsmen and soldiers had been reduced to “Udta Punjab”. He asserted that under the BJP rule, Punjab would be transformed into “Ubharta Punjab”.
Chugh alleged that grenade attacks were being carried out on police stations.
Chugh also alleged that today ordinary citizens of Punjab, including lawyers, doctors, shopkeepers, businessmen, and farmers, are receiving extortion calls from individuals operating from inside jails.
While explaining the five ‘sankalps’ (pledges) of the BJP’s anti-drug yatra, Chugh said the BJP is committed to uprooting drug peddlers’ network; dismantling the drug supply chain; rehabilitating drug victims and youth to give them a second chance at life; turning the anti-drug campaign into a broader movement for social reform involving every section of society; and eliminating drug money and gangsterism from Punjab.
He appealed to the people to take five pledges to make Punjab a drug-free and progressive state once again.
Speaking on the occasion, BJP MLA from Delhi Arvinder Singh Lovely said while AAP and Congress remain preoccupied with politics, only the BJP is addressing the root cause of the drug crisis and working to spread awareness against it.
He described the yatra as being driven not by political motive but by Prime Minister Nrendra Modi’s vision for a progressive Punjab, and said the party is working to boost the state’s revenue and to free it from gangsterism.
(PTI News)
