CAPT AMARINDER DISMISSES SUKHBIR’S OFFER OF JOINT ACTION ON DRUGS AS POLITICAL GIMMICK
SAYS, `YOU’VE PERPETRATED & PERPETUATED THE PROBLEM, SO STOP TAKING MORAL HIGH GROUND’
The Voice of Canada News | Photo By T S Bedi
Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has ridiculed Sukhbir Singh Badal’s call for de-politicising the drugs and sacrilege issue as nothing but a political gimmick to divert public attention from his own role in shamelessly allowing both to flourish during his party’s 10-year misrule.
Deriding Sukhbir Badal and his wife Harsimrat Kaur Badal’s desperate attempt to take the high moral ground on the issue of drugs – a problem perpetrated and perpetuated by the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), the Chief Minister described it as a last-ditch effort by them to live down the appalling legacy they had left behind.
After ruining a whole generation of youth, Sukhbir Badal was now talking about fighting the menace together, said the Chief Minister, challenging 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 the drug menace, which had assumed gigantic proportions under their rule.
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, said the Chief Minister, adding that he was more than capable of handling the situation on his own, with the help of his able cabinet colleagues and officers.
“We have successfully brought the state out of the fiscal chaos into which it had been plunged by the erstwhile SAD-BJP regime. 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 Chief Minister said in a hard-hitting statement in response to Sukhbir’s offer of joining hands with the government to fight drugs.
Dismissing Sukhbir’s suggestion of taking other parties into confidence over the steps being taken by his government to combat the drug problem, the Chief Minister said that going by the precedent set by the Akalis, as well as 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 STF, the Punjab Police and other agencies, had already unleashed to wipe out drugs from Punjab.