Capt Amarinder dismisses joint action offer of Sukhbir, Harsimrat as ‘political gimmick’
Deriding Sukhbir and Harsimrat, the CM dubbed it as a desperate attempt to take high moral ground on the issue of drugs, a problem, he said, was “perpetrated and perpetuated by Akalis”.
Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Saturday ridiculed Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief Sukhbir Singh Badal’s call for de-politicising the drugs and sacrilege issue as a “political gimmick to divert public attention from his own role in shamelessly allowing both to flourish during his party’s 10-year misrule”.
Sukhbir and his wife, Union food processing minister Harsimrat Badal, in an interview to HT on Friday, said nobody should play politics on this issue. “Neither a blame game nor fixing a politician or an officer will solve the problem. We have to fight this jointly. As head of the government, Amarinder should take everyone into confidence. It should be a joint fight irrespective of political affiliations. It (drug menace) is an attack on the state,” they had said.
Deriding Sukhbir and Harsimrat, the CM dubbed it as a desperate attempt to take high moral ground on the issue of drugs, a problem, he said, was “perpetrated and perpetuated by Akalis”. Describing it as a last-ditch effort by them to live down the appalling legacy they had left behind, the CM said: “After ruining a whole generation of youth, Sukhbir was now talking about fighting the menace together.”
He challenged the SAD president to cite even one instance during their regime when they had sought political consensus or taken help from the Congress on any issue, including drug menace, which had “assumed gigantic proportions under their rule”.
Amarinder said his government did not need the advice of a party or leadership which had been “responsible, in the first place, for the mess” which Punjab was struggling to tackle. “We have successfully brought the state out of the fiscal chaos into which the erstwhile SAD-BJP regime had plunged it into. We have succeeded in eliminating some of the top gangsters who had a free run under your rule. We have been able to stabilise the law and order situation and put an effective check on the sacrilege cases that were widespread during your mis-governance. And we have done all this without your advice or help, Mr Sukhbir Badal,” the CM said in a hard-hitting statement.
He said going by the precedent set by the Akalis as well as the AAP in the state assembly, he would prefer not to waste his time and energies in talking to them. He added that he believed in ensuring on-ground action, which his entire government, ably supported by the special task force (STF), the Punjab Police and other agencies, had already unleashed to wipe out drugs from Punjab.
Ridiculing Sukhbir’s statement that during their rule, the Akalis fought the problem tooth and nail, the CM said the situation prevailing on the ground clearly nailed his lies. “You cannot fool the people of Punjab with your fabrications any longer,” he told Sukhbir and Harsimrat.
Agreeing with Sukhbir that no sensible politician would ever promote narcotics, the CM said unfortunately, for 10 years, the state was under the control of politicians “who were far from sensible”. He said it was laughable that the very leadership which had left no stone unturned in destroying the state for 10 years was now trying to push the blame for its shocking failures on the Congress government.
On Sukhbir’s question if any Akali had been caught for drugs in the past year-and-a-half, the CM said unlike the SAD and its ally BJP, the Congress had never believed in following a policy of vendetta against its opponents. “But the moment the STF, or any of the other agencies investigating drug cases, find evidence of complicity of any Akali leader, he would personally ensure that the accused is thrown behind bars and the case against him is taken to its logical conclusion under the law,” he added.
On Harsimrat’s statement that he was a “non-serious CM who doesn’t go to office”, he said she spent as much time in Delhi, where she should be considering that she was a union minister and might be able to get some of the much-needed support for Punjab from the Centre but she seemed to be busy tracking his schedule.