Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) lashed out at Congress-led Punjab Government for its failure to control the drug menace in the state, with the party dubbing the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh as the “new commander of the Badals’ mafia raj”.
Addressing the party’s political conference on the occasion of ‘Rakhar Puniya’ on Friday, AAP’s Punjab unit president and Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann said that Capt Amarinder Government, which was voted to power in 2017 on the promise of ending the menace of drugs within four weeks of assuming power, had miserably failed on this front as “it has done nothing to contain it”.
Mann said that due to poor governance, the youngsters were getting hooked to drugs, and the hassled parents were bearing the brunt of the menace in silence while the government in the saddle was holidaying in the hills.
Citing the problems of the farmers, farm hands, MGNREGA and the unemployed youth currently being faced by them, Mann said that the Captain Government, SAD-BJP alliance Government at the Centre had failed to take an urgent call on the issues.
Mounting a scathing attack on the ‘Patiala royal family’ and the Badal family, Mann said that both the families had caused much damage to Punjab and the panth than anybody else. “While the royal family had honoured General Dyer, the architect of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, by honouring the ‘killer’, the Majithia family, a kin of the Badal clan, had hosted a dinner for him and presented siropa (robe of honour) to him,” he said.
Taking a swipe at State Government, the leader of Opposition in Vidhan Sabha Harpal Singh Cheema said that Capt Amarinder had taken charge of the ‘mafia raj’ earlier managed by the Badals, and was indulging in open ‘loot’ of public money.
Party MLA Prof Baljinder Kaur highlighted the issues of demolition of the historic Sri Guru Ravidas temple by the BJP-controlled Delhi Development Authority (DDA) in the Tuglaqabad area of Delhi and the abduction of Sri Guru Granth Sahib and the Behabal Kalan-Kotakpura shooting incident and desecration of Sri Guru Granth Sahib, while Jai Krishan Singh Rori (MLA), Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal and Dalbir Singh Tong stressed the need for strengthening of the party base.