Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
CHANDIGARH, August 20: Senior Congress leader and Kapurthala MLA Rana Gurjeet Singh today blasted Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal’s charges against Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on the issue of drug addiction in Punjab. He dared Sukhbir to seek clarification from Prime Minister Modi also on the issue as he had also said the same things what Rahul Gandhi had said about drug addiction in Punjab.
“Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about the drug scourge in Punjab in his ‘mann ki baat’ radio address, is he also wrong?” Rana asked Sukhbir while daring him to have the courage and contradict Mr Modi the same way he was criticising Rahul Gandhi.
Ridiculing Sukhbir’s claims that there were no addicts in Punjab, Rana asked him then why were thousands of youth languishing in the prisons on the charges of drug consumption and pedalling. “Your government has put thousands of youth behind bars on the charges of drugs. DO you mean they are all innocent and have been wrongly imprisoned?” he asked Sukhbir.
Moreover, he added, the drug trade, particularly the synthetic drugs patronised by the Akalis, is a multi-billion business in Punjab. “Let the Deputy CM tell us who is supplying these drugs and who is consuming them”, he said.
Referring to Sukhbir’s example that out of 5500 candidates who had recently appeared for army recruitment none tested positive for dope, the Congress leader remarked, “it is a common sense that nobody who has ever tried a drug would come for recruitment knowing well his drug addiction will be found out”. Hence, he added, there is no question of anybody testing positive for dope in such recruitment rallies.
The Kapurthala MLA asked Sukhbir that instead of going into the characteristic denial mode and running away from the problem he should take it head on. “Your merely saying that there is no drug addiction in Punjab does not purge the state of the problem”, he told Sukhbir adding, “you need to first accept that there is a problem only then a solution can be found out”.
Rana said, if Sukhbir is so confident about his facts and figures he should not be running away from debate in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha as demanded by the CLP Leader Sunil Jakhar long ago. “There can be no better forum than Punjab Vidhan Sabha to discuss the issue and come clean on it for Sukhbir and his government”, he observed.
