The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal today hit out at Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi alleging he was "shedding crocodile tears" over the drug menace in Punjab.
"It is clear you have no love lost for Punjabis or their sentiments so please stop shedding crocodile tears over drugs in Punjab," SAD spokesman Daljit Cheema said in a statement here.
At a rally in Jalandhar earlier, Gandhi, hitting out at the 9-year-old SAD-BJP government in the state, accused the Akalis of "protecting" drugs trade and said there was "ease in doing only one business in Punjab which is of drugs".
Cheema asked Gandhi to explain his remarks over the issue of drug addiction in Punjab.
The Congress vice-president at the rally said, "The hands and feet of Punjab's youth are chained and without breaking these chains, Punjab cannot move forward. Punjab's people will have to accept this truth and only then we can wage a war against drugs. Nothing will happen by hiding it."
Cheema also alleged that the truth of the matter was that the drug trade "flourished" during Congress rule in Punjab.
"Your government was in power at the Centre also for 10 years but did not do anything about the matter. It was only when the SAD- BJP government started taking sweeping steps to end this menace that you woke up about the problem and tried to score brownie points by wrongly quoting a survey report", he added.
Cheema claimed Rahul was fond of reading verbatim from scripts handed over to him.
He (Gandhi) did so when he claimed 70 per cent Punjabis were drug addicts four years ago and again today when he said police officers were sent on 'Khudeline' (unimportant) job by Punjab government, he said.
"It would have been better if he had listed how much employment had been provided by the previous Amarinder Singh's government in Punjab while speaking about unemployment."
"If you do a Google search on this issue you will come to know that the Amarinder government had banned recruitment. The SAD- BJP government on the other hand has recruited 1.30 lakh youths and recruitment processing for providing jobs to 1.25 lakh more youths is already on", he added.
"Defaming Punjabis is akin to cutting the sword arm of the country and weakening India", Cheema said (MORE).
Talking about the controversy over "Udta Punjab" film, the
SAD leader alleged that Gandhi is deliberately fanning sentiments on the issue when it was clear that the movie was an AAP-sponsored show with the co-producer of the movie, Sameer Nair, turned out to be a close associate of Arvind Kejriwal and also a senior member of the AAP communication wing.
Further attacking Aam Aadmi Party, the ruling SAD leader alleged that the party's record on drug menace is clear from its inability to take action against its Punjab campaign committee chairman Bhagwant Mann, who he claimed was perpetually under the influence of liquor or other deadly intoxicants.
"Starting from Chandigarh Press Club where he came to address a press conference in a drunken condition to appearing before the Guru Granth Sahib as a drunkard to getting into a brawl at a toll plaza in Dera Bassi under the influence, Mann has done it all", he claimed.
