CM terms Badals’ joint action offer a political gimmick
CHANDIGARH: 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 chief to cite an instance in their regime when they sought political consensus or took help from Congress on an issue, including drug menace, which “assumed gigantic proportions in 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”. “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 law and order and put an effective check on the sacrilege cases that were widespread during your misgovernance. And we have done all this without your advice or help, Mr Sukhbir Badal,” the CM said in a hard-hitting statement.