PM must clarify on drug menace in state: Bajwa

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 17

With Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal directly blaming the Centre and the BJP-run states for drug smuggling in this border state, Punjab Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa today called upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi to clarify the situation to end this confusion.

“The Chief Minister has written a letter to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh urging him to take appropriate steps to tighten vigil on the border to stop smuggling of drugs from across the border. The Deputy Chief Minister has demanded that the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan should ban poppy cultivation as opium and poppy husk were smuggled to Punjab from there. The alliance partners are blaming each other for the situation. It is for the Prime Minister to elaborate on the real position,” he said.

Modi had raised this issue in his “Man Ki Baat” recently. Earlier, the anguish expressed by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi was construed as criticism of the Badal government. The state government went into the counter-offensive mode. “Now, the PM has virtually reiterated what Gandhi had said earlier,” he said.