Punjab Congress while appreciating the serious concern expressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the drug menace, said he should dismiss the state government as a first step to end this scourge and order CBI probe.
Punjab was the only state where the names of certain ministers had surfaced in drug smuggling and one of them had to resign, state Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa said in a statement here.
However, no action was taken against others, he alleged adding it was only after the formation of the government at the Centre that the state BJP had started taking up this issue.
"... What was happening in Punjab was a direct threat to the national security as it was the state government which was aiding and abetting drug smuggling going by the statements made by the smugglers arrested by the police." Bajwa said.
He claimed the Enforcement Directorate was ready with the investigations but the agency was waiting for political signals as the person on the list of those to be questioned included a powerful minister.
Calling the "devastating" drug addiction menace as a "national pain", a concerned Prime Minister has said that the money spent by youth on drugs could be funding terrorism.
"Have you thought that the money you spend on drugs might be going to terrorists who buy bullets to kill our soldiers? You also love mother India. How can you help terrorists?," the PM has said in his third 'Mann Ki Baat' programme on radio yesterday.
Bajwa asserted the PM had only corroborated what Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi had said during his Punjab visit before the elections when he referred to the wide spread menace of drugs which was hotly contested by the Prakash Singh Badal government.
"Would they now dub the same as the overstatement with political overtones as the BJP was eyeing more space in Punjab,"?, Bajwa asked.
He said the Prime Minister had took up the issue at the right time and as a first step, he must throw out the Badal government followed by the CBI inquiry to prove his sincerity.
