D for dope test returns to Punjab politics vocabulary as Ludhiana West bypoll heats up
A demand for legal cultivation of poppy in drug-hit Punjab has triggered a war of words between the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Congress ahead of the high-stakes June 19 Ludhiana West Assembly bypoll, with leaders challenging each other to take dope tests.
Making a case in favour of legalisation of poppy cultivation, Ludhiana MP and Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring on Sunday said that consumption of poppy was less harmful than synthetic drugs.
Ruling out any possibility of meeting the demand, state Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema on Monday demanded Warring undertake a dope test and accused him of 'promoting drug culture'. Cheema also held the previous Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-BJP governments responsible for the 'alarming rise of drug abuse in Punjab'. 'It was during their terms that drugs were sown in Punjab's soil. The AAP government led by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann is now committed to uprooting this menace,' he said.
Warring almost immediately responded and urged Cheema not to politicise the issue. 'I welcome Cheema's suggestion (of me taking a dope test)… I am ready for the test but I will get it done along with Cheema. Before that, CM Mann should also undergo the test… I raised the issue of opium cultivation as the number of deaths due to drug overdose have been on the rise. The cultivation of poppy can put an end to this,' he said.
Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly Partap Singh Bajwa too echoed Warring's views. 'I have been suggesting for a while now that all leaders, starting with the CM, must take the test…' he said.
Terming the issue a 'diversionary tactic', state BJP chief Sunil Jakhar said, 'As the bypoll is round the corner, politics is being played over the issue to divert the people from real ones.'
The standoff comes amid the Mann government's crackdown on the drug menace to make a 'drug-free Punjab', a pre-poll promise of the AAP. The Punjab Police has filed 11,156 FIRs under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act between April 1, 2022, and February 28, 2023.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court in January 2023 also weighed in on the issue. 'The lives of citizens are being destroyed due to the selling of these banned substances… There is an alarming spike in the number of people buying and selling these contraband in the country, especially in Punjab, which needs to be controlled in an effective manner so as to minimise the said offence, if not to eradicate,' the court held, while hearing the anticipatory bail plea of a person accused of peddling drugs.
In March 2023, then Punjab Health Minister Balbir Singh told the Assembly that the number of individuals grappling with addiction stood at 10 lakh.
Now new to Punjab's politics
Incidentally, demanding testing for drugs is not new in Punjab's politics. In 2018, with former CM Amarinder Singh at the helm, state minister Tripat Rajinder Singh Bajwa had demanded dope tests for all government employees after several people died of drug overdose.
As employee unions demanded that leaders take the test first, several MLAs and ministers volunteered for it, before the government took a call. First to get himself tested for drugs was Punjab AAP chief and then Sunam MLA Aman Arora. Tripat Bajwa himself took a dope test and was followed by a few MLAs, including then Speaker Rana K P Singh.
In 2015, a similar demand was put forward by the then Opposition Congress, which demanded SAD and BJP ministers undergo the test after then DSP Jagdish Singh Bhola, an alleged drug kingpin, was nabbed.
The upcoming bypoll, necessitated after sitting AAP MLA Gurpreet Gogi 'accidentally' shot himself to death in January, has turned into a prestige battle for the AAP as it comes close on the heels of its drubbing in the February Delhi Assembly polls, where party bigwigs including party chief Arvind Kejriwal and former Delhi deputy CM Manish Sisodia lost. The Congress is also going all out to wrest the seat from the AAP.
The AAP has fielded Rajya Sabha MP Sanjeev Arora for the bypoll. He will be up against former minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu of the Congress, the Akali Dal's Parupkar Singh Ghumman and Jiwan Gupta of the BJP.
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