Delhi polls: AAP MPs raise Punjab's drugs menace to prevent redux

They are just four of them but the AAP quartet in parliament is determined to make Punjab's festering problem of drugs an issue for the Delhi assembly polls with an eye on the large Punjabi population in the national capital - and to prevent the worrying problem from spilling over into Delhi.

The four AAP MPs - Bhagwant Mann, Dharam Vira Gandhi, Harinder Singh Khalsa and Sadhu Singh - are especially focussing on four assembly seats that predominantly account for Punjabi and Sikh voters. The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has also fielded its candidates for these seats as part of its poll alliance with the BJP in Delhi.

"Our Delhi poll agenda is clear; it is for the people to decide now. For Punjabis (living in Delhi) it is important to remember that the SAD-BJP regime in Punjab has devastated the youth by making a continuous inflow of drugs into the state. One of its cabinet ministers has been found to be involved in it," AAP MP from Sangrur Bhagwant Mann told IANS.

He was referring to Punjab cabinet minister and SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia's name recently surfacing in money laundering through drug trade. The Enforcement Directorate has also questioned him in the case.

Mann said: "We are trying to make them (Punjabi voters) understand that they will face the same problem here if they allow the BJP-SAD alliance to come to power in Delhi. They will also make Delhi like Punjab (in terms of drug trade)."

Delhi goes to the polls Feb 7 and the results will be declared Feb 10. The four seats the SAD is contesting are Rajouri Garden, Kalkaji, Shahdara and Hari Nagar. In the 2013 polls, the SAD won only from Kalkaji.

"Their performance in Punjab is in front of the people of Delhi," AAP MP from Patiala Dharmveer Gandhi told IANS.

"Delhi Punjabis are well aware of the fact that the BJP-SAD rule will give them only drugs. We are telling the same to the people," he added.

AAP believes that Punjabi voters in Delhi are always a decisive factor in any elections and the party has thus asked its four MPs to campaign in Delhi. All of them have been campaigning in the city in Punjabi-dominated areas for the past two weeks.

Another AAP leader said the current situation in Punjab would help them in the four seats, which have a majority of Sikh voters.

He claimed that SAD already seems to have conceded defeat as it is contesting on the BJP symbol in three constituencies. Only in Rajouri Garden, it is fighting on its own symbol.

(Alok Singh can be contacted at alok.s@ians.in)