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Ludhiana West bypoll: Drug allegations fly as AAP, BJP lock horns
The latest salvo was fired by BJP state general secretary Anil Sarin and district president Rajnish Dhiman, who held a press conference in Ludhiana on Monday
With the Ludhiana West byelection scheduled for June 19, political temperatures have soared as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have entered into a fierce war of words, accusing each other of shielding drug peddlers and failing to curb the state’s drug menace.
The latest salvo was fired by BJP state general secretary Anil Sarin and district president Rajnish Dhiman, who held a press conference in Ludhiana on Monday. Hitting back at earlier accusations from AAP MP Malwinder Singh Kang, Sarin accused the AAP government of being directly responsible for the ongoing drug crisis in Punjab.
“The AAP government is hand-in-glove with drug suppliers. Their much-publicised ‘Yudh Nashian Virudh’ campaign has failed to arrest even a single major drug supplier,” Sarin alleged. He claimed that the real reason the drug trade continues unchecked is because some AAP leaders are allegedly offering protection to those involved in it.
Referring to a recent incident in Ajnala on May 28, Sarin said two men were arrested with 50 gms of heroin—an amount that qualifies as a commercial quantity. He accused AAP cabinet minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal of intervening in the case by visiting the police station and instructing the police to send the youths to a drug rehabilitation centre instead of proceeding with legal action. “Who gave Dhaliwal the authority to interfere with police work when an FIR was already registered?” asked Sarin, demanding the minister’s resignation.
In response, Dhaliwal strongly refuted the BJP leader’s allegations, calling them “false, fabricated, and politically motivated.” He said that he had every right to ensure that drug addicts—especially the youth—get a chance at recovery instead of being criminalised without proper investigation.
Dhaliwal clarified that out of the six-seven people arrested from Lakhowal village, two were reportedly drug users and not dealers. Villagers had approached him, claiming the duo had been wrongly arrested. One of them had just returned from a rehabilitation centre. He said he contacted the local SHO, requested a fair probe, and advised that if the boys were users, they should be sent for treatment. The SHO later sent the two to a rehabilitation centre, while those actually involved in drug peddling were booked under relevant charges.
The minister also hit back at the BJP and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), saying they had no moral ground to speak on the issue of drugs, given the massive drug problem that spiralled during their regime. Dhaliwal revealed that his own family had suffered from the crisis—his 32-year-old nephew died of a drug overdose in 2013. “The pain of drugs is not theoretical for me. It is deeply personal. That’s why I returned to India to fight this menace,” he said emotionally.
