New Delhi: Under attack from Home Minister Amit Shah over rampant drug abuse in Punjab, the Aam Aadmi Party has sought to turn the tables on the BJP, citing the seizure of heroin worth Rs 21,000 crore at Gujarat’s Mundra port in 2021 and accusing the previous Akali Dal-BJP government of bringing drugs into Punjab.
“Amit Shah must have spoken about Mundra Port in Gujarat, where Rs 21,000 crore worth of drugs were seized from Adani’s port,” AAP’s Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh told ThePrint in an interview.
The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) seized 2,988.21 kg of heroin from two containers at Mundra port on 17 and 19 September 2021. The containers had arrived from Afghanistan via Iran and were declared to contain semi-processed talc stones. The NIA subsequently took over the investigation.
The port saw further drug seizures in 2022. On 26 May, the DRI seized 52.488 kg of cocaine, estimated to be worth more than Rs 500 crore in the international black market, from an import consignment declared to be common salt. A separate seizure of 75.3 kg of heroin was recorded in July 2022 by the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad and Punjab Police.
Amit Shah, during his visit to Punjab Tuesday, accused the Bhagwant Mann government of failing to curb the drug trade and questioned how drugs continued to reach the state’s youth.
“But how does that drug get packed in a pudiya (packet) and reach Punjab? How does it reach Punjab’s young boys and girls? Is it possible without the support, protection of political patronage?” Shah asked.
Sanjay Singh blamed the previous Akali Dal-BJP government for the drug menace in Punjab, citing the case against Akali leader Bikram Singh Majithia.
“The Akali Dal-BJP government has committed the sin of sending drugs to villages. One of their leaders, Majithia, went to jail,” he told ThePrint.
“If someone has committed the sin of bringing drugs to Punjab first, then the BJP and the Akali Dal have done it. I am saying this with full responsibility,” he added.
Sanjay Singh challenged the BJP to compare drug cases and recoveries under successive governments instead of focusing only on AAP’s record.
“How many cases of drugs were filed in the administration of Akali Dal and BJP? In the administration of Aam Aadmi Party, how many drugs were recovered? How many drugs were caught?” he asked.
During the interview, ThePrint cited figures showing 106 drug-related deaths in Punjab in 2024, compared to 144 in 2022 and 89 in 2023. Sanjay Singh did not say the figures established an improvement under AAP, instead calling for a comparison of successive governments’ records. “I am telling you to take out the figures and talk about it,” he said.
Recalling the situation between 2015 and 2017, Singh said: “Twelfth-grade children were found lying dead on the road after being injected.”
He claimed AAP had conducted extensive investigations into drug trafficking. “We have done not one, but a thousand investigations into drugs,” he said.
Sanjay Singh rejected allegations that Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann lacked autonomy and that the state government was being run from Delhi. “Bhagwant Mann has no autonomy, but he gives 300 units of free electricity to people across Punjab? Bhagwant Mann has no autonomy, but he provides government jobs?” he said.
On reports of government schools lacking basic infrastructure, Singh acknowledged that not all schools had been improved. “We have never claimed that we have improved every school in Punjab. Some schools may have been left out; we will fix them,” he said.
“Our direction is to improve schools and provide better facilities. That is the path we are on,” he added.
‘AAP to stay out of INDIA bloc’
Sanjay Singh reiterated that AAP was not part of the INDIA bloc and would not join its 1 November rally at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan. “When we are not a part of the INDIA bloc, whether we are going to that meeting or not is an unimportant question,” he said. “The INDIA bloc rally is for the people of the INDIA bloc. They will do it in their own way,” he added.
Singh said AAP was also campaigning against alleged electoral malpractice and pointed to its support for the impeachment motion against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. “We are also fighting against vote theft on the streets. And we are also fighting in the Sadan,” he said.
“When there was an impeachment move against Gyanesh Kumar, we were the first people to sign it,” he added.
“You have deleted 13 crore 37 lakh names. How many Bangladeshis have been found in this country? Tell us the figures. How many Pakistanis have been found?” Singh asked.
Sanjay Singh defended the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), which has highlighted school infrastructure and other issues in different states, against suggestions that it was going soft on AAP.
“We supported CJP. We supported the farmers in the farmers’ movement. We were with them in that too,” he said. He said CJP should highlight problems wherever it found them. “CJP will expose whatever it sees,” he said.
‘Didn’t discuss alliance’
Sanjay Singh said AAP had yet to decide how many seats it would contest in the next Uttar Pradesh Assembly election. “The political affairs committee (PAC) will take the final decision. When Kejriwal and the PAC decide how to fight the elections in UP, we will inform you,” he said.
Singh said AAP had campaigned against the closure of 27,000 schools, which he attributed to the Yogi Adityanath government.
On his meetings with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Singh said the two had discussed delimitation and OBC recruitment in Uttar Pradesh, but not an electoral alliance. “This is not our first meeting with Akhilesh Yadav. We meet him a lot and have a personal equation,” he said. “There are a lot of common causes that we discuss,” he added.
Asked whether they had discussed an alliance, Singh said: “No, we didn’t discuss the political alliance.” He reiterated that AAP’s decision to stay outside the INDIA bloc was a party decision. “INDIA bloc is a decision of our party. We are not in the INDIA bloc,” he said.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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