Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar attended the Government’s high-level “official” meeting on the drugs issue on Tuesday irking many Opposition leaders.
The rival political parties have questioned Jakhar’s presence in the Government’s meeting. They argued that in case the Government wanted to have a political view on the situation, representatives of all the parties should have been invited for the meeting.
Besides, the Chief Minister, the meeting was attended by Health Minister Brahm Mohindra, DGP Suresh Arora, Chief Principal Secretary to CM Suresh Kumar, Chief Secretary Karan Avtar Singh, Principal Secretary to CM Tejveer Singh, Additional Chief Secretary (Home) NS Kalsi, Additional Chief Secretary (Health) Satish Chandra, besides all the DCs, SSPs and the CPs.
During the meeting, Jakhar attributed the problem to political patronage provided to drug trade by the erstwhile Akali Government.
Chief Minister Amarinder Singh agreed to Jakhar’s views that party MlAs should be involved in making a perceptible change on the ground to make the people feel that the situation had changed from what it was under the previous regime.
At the same time, Chief Minister reiterated his previous instructions to the police and administrative officials to give due respect to the elected representatives. They should work together to make Punjab completely drug-free, he added.