CHANDIGARH, Jul 26: A day after former chief minister Amarinder Singh accused the AAP government of “targeted harassment” of Akali leader Bikram Singh Majithia, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Saturday hit back, calling Singh “double-faced” on the drug menace issue.
Mann also accused Amarinder Singh of failing to act against drug smugglers despite having “sworn on the sacred Gutka Sahib”.
“You are concerned about the human rights of drug smugglers…,” the chief minister said in a post on X and questioned Singh on his 2017 poll promise of eradicating the drug menace within four weeks.
The chief minister was reacting to Singh’s allegations that the AAP government “believes that cheap sensationalism, political vendetta, and ruthless repression are substitutes for governance”.
“Punjab has never seen such a blatant assault on democracy where critics of their misrule and corruption are being house-arrested, falsely charged, and silenced,” Amarinder Singh, who left the Congress in 2021 to float his own party and merged it with the BJP a year later, alleged in a Facebook post.
“The targeted harassment of Bikram Singh Majithia is a shocking example of their inhuman tactics. I strongly condemn this political persecution. Mass protests are being crushed, dissent is being muzzled, and Punjab is being remotely controlled from Delhi like a mafia operation,” Singh further alleged.
Without naming anyone, Mann in his post on X, wrote on Saturday, “Captain Sahib (Amarinder Singh), today you are concerned about the human rights of drug smugglers. When people’s sons were dying in agony during your and your nephew’s rule, you were busy in gatherings.”
“Now Punjab has come to know that you all are double-faced, but, unfortunately, after losing a lot. The BJP will now dismiss your statement by calling it personal…,” he said.
Last month, the Punjab Vigilance Bureau arrested Majithia in a case of alleged disproportionate assets involving laundering of Rs 540 crore of “drug money”. Majithia is in judicial custody till August 2.
Mann later said that it was ironic that while the sons of ordinary citizens were dying painful deaths due to drug abuse, the “opulent Maharaja” remained busy attending lavish parties.
He asserted that such leaders have “destroyed” Punjab by enabling a generational genocide through their “inaction and complicity”.
Mann said that the leaders of rival parties treated governance like a game of musical chairs, vying for power while “protecting and promoting” the drug trade.
He alleged that the hands of these leaders are stained with the blood of Punjab’s youth who fell victim to their conspiracies. “They lit the funeral pyres of our young generation by allowing drugs to flourish unchecked,” Mann further alleged.
Mann said the people of Punjab will never forgive Amarinder Singh and his allies for their “betrayal” of the state and its citizens.
He accused opposition leaders of being “hand in glove” with drug smugglers and asserted that the people of the state will never forgive them for their “hypocrisy and betrayal”.
Mann also dared the Congress and the BJP to clarify their stance on the issue of drugs.
The CM said that his government has launched a full-fledged war against drugs under the campaign ‘Yudh Nasheyan De Virudh’ and expressed pride that the “backbone of the drug network has been broken”.
He said that in the coming days, strict action will be taken against anyone who has plundered the state, and the government has already initiated this process.
Mann affirmed that those who have looted the state’s wealth will not be spared and will be put behind bars. (PTI)
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