‘We were a junior alliance partner’: Dhillon rejects AAP’s charge on drug menace during 2007-2017

Rejecting the AAP’s charge on drug menace, Punjab BJP president Kewal Dhillon Friday said that the BJP was the junior alliance partner of the SAD from 2007 to 2017.

“We neither had the Chief Minister nor the Deputy Chief Minister then. Moreover, the BJP had 19 MLAs in the government in 2007 and 12 MLAs in 2012. Therefore, we were not in a position to take major decisions,” he said on the 8th day of the BJP’s Nasha Mukt Yatra.

The yatra, which began from four corners of Punjab, will culminate in Jalandhar on September 30, when Union Home Minister Amit Shah is scheduled to visit the state.

He added, “Today, the BJP is looking at the present situation and the way the drug menace has increased manifold in Punjab. Home delivery of drugs is taking place; even pizza delivery can be delayed, but drug supplies cannot. The question is whether we want to focus on the menace and work for the welfare of the people or waste time in a blame game. Drug abuse is an issue on which all political parties should join hands, rising above party lines, if they genuinely care about their voters.”

He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah have stated that they aim to eradicate the drug menace from the entire country by 2029.

Reacting to Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s allegations that drug supplies are coming through Mundra port in Gujarat, Dhillon said, “If any drug consignments were found at Mundra port, they were seized by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI). Moreover, drugs have not reached every household in Gujarat or Rajasthan in the manner they have in Punjab. The drugs being consumed by addicts in Punjab are, by and large, synthetic drugs, which are manufactured here or in neighbouring states. Punjab needs to set its own house in order first.”