The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today said it was a matter of shame for Rahul Gandhi to first dub 70 per cent of Punjabis as drug addicts and now heap insult on injury by insisting they accept this false claim to be true.Stating that Rahul Gandhi was becoming a party to maligning Punjabis as drug addicts in the same manner in which his grand mother Indira Gandhi had tagged them as terrorists, the SAD asked Rahul to explain why he had insisted during his speech in Jalandhar today that Punjabis should accept that they were drug addicts.In a statement here, SAD spokesman Dr Daljit Cheema said "I can understand that your father Rajiv Gandhi encouraged the 1984 anti- Sikh genocide with his utterances and even protected the perpetrators. But you should not have followed in his footsteps by appointing a 1984 accused - Kamal Nath as the party incharge of Punjab. It is clear you have no love lost for Punjabis or their sentiments so please stop shedding crocodile tears over drugs in Punjab".
The SAD leader said the truth of the matter was that the drug trade flourished during Congress rule in Punjab. "Rahul Baba should ask his mother about the letter written by the PCC president Capt Amarinder Singh in which he detailed how a senior Congress leader and his family was involved in selling drugs and patronising smugglers. Your government was in power at the centre also for ten 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", Dr Cheema added.The SAD leader said Rahul baba was fond of reading verbatim from scripts handed over to him.
"He did so when he claimed 70 per cent Punjabis were drug addicts four years back. He did so today when he said police officers were sent to khudda ki line by the Punjab government. The manner in which you quote local idioms is indicative of the fact that you do not even understand what you are being made to read", he added.Dr Cheema while speaking about Udta Punjab said Rahul was deliberately fanning sentiments on this issue when it was clear that the movie was an AAP sponsored show with the co producer of the movie - Sameer Nair turning out to be a close associate of Arvind Kejriwal and also a senior member of the AAP communication wing. He said the AAP record on drugs was clear from its inability to take action against its Punjab campaign committee chairman Bhagwant Mann who was perpetually under the influence of liquor or other deadly intoxicants. "Starting from the 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", Dr Cheema added
Speaking about Rahul's speech in Jalandhar today, Dr Cheema said it would have been better if he had listed how much employment had been provided by the previous Capt Amarinder government in Punjab while speaking about unemployment. "If you make 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 youth and recruitment processing for giving jobs to 1.25 lakh more youth is already on", he added.The SAD leader said it would have been better if Rahul had tried to debate development done during Amarinder's rule with that during SAD-BJP tenure. "We challenge you to name a single big project given by the Congress led UPA government to Punjab".The SAD leader meanwhile made it clear that Rahul could continue his smear campaign but it would be the brave Punjabis who would rise up as one to defend the nation in time of need. "Defaming Punjabis is akin to cutting the sword arm of the country and weakening India", he added.