The Punjab Revenue and Public Relations minister Bikarm Singh Majithia today saw a “sinister and devious political game-plan” behind the Congress General Secretary Mr. Rahul Gandhi’s deliberate misuse of distorted figures from a reported survey to dub the Punjabi youth as “drug addicts”. Rahul Gandhi’s statement, said Majithia, is based on a deliberate distortion and misquoting the findings of one of the surveys on the subject and amounts to defaming and weakening the sword of the country, the Punjabi youth, and inflicting fresh wounds on their young minds” Rahul Gandhi is a product of metropolitan mindset and fails to understand the dangerous the problems being faced by the people of the country, especially the youth. Why did he deliberately misquot and misinterpret the figure? Why is he out to defame and demoralize the youth of Punjab which is not only the sword arm but also the food basket of India? Where have over 50 years of their misrule taken the country and its youth ? What has been the impact of their disastrous policies like hurting religious sentiments of the people, attacking their places of worship with guns and mortars ? Does he think this had no impact on the minds of the young whom he today calls drug addicts? Why is he today deliberately misquoting a survey that too on the sacred precincts of a place of high learning like the university to slap such an irresponsible allegation against Punjabi’s youth of whom the whole country was proud. ,” said Majthia in a statement here. Referring to the survey referred to by the Congress leaders, “The actual figure even according to that survey is many times less than claimed by the AICC General Secretary. And even for the existence of the problem on that lesser scale , the ruinous policies of the successive Congress governments in Delhi and Punjab are directly responsible. The SAD-BJP government has in fact waged a war on the menace which was a legacy of the previous Congress governments and “we have been successful in reducing its magnitude to a considerable extent. The policies of the Congress government led to massive unemployment among the youth and further spread poverty, illiteracy and inequality. These in turn become breeding grounds for drug addiction. ”According to the details of that survey, only one member in 67% rural families may have taken drug under one or the other pretext. Taking average size of the rural Punjab family to be between five and seven members, this figure translates into just 14% of the overall population under survey, which was conducted in the worst affected areas. So how has Rahul Gandhi calculated this to mean 70% of the youth is hard to understand .” Elsewhere, the same survey gives a different figure, saying that “only three out of ten boys and one out of ten girls may be taking one or the form of drugs. Which means that even the worst case scenario would put the computed combined figure at just around 18% of the youth. The reported survey, said Majithia, covered the status of Punjab during the period immediately after the Congress government between 2002 and 2007.”We battled a legacy left by them and we have been succeeding in our efforts. We have had a tough legacy to handle but we have handled it with commendable success.” Majithia said that the state government had already waged a war against social evils such as drug addiction . “We are constrained with certain typical strategic and geographical disdvanatages. Punjab has a long , porous and active international border with Paksitan and falls on the infamous “narco-terrorist route spreading from Afghanistan to the Far east countries. We also have the additional disadvantage that in some of states like Rajsthan, the sale of drugs is made legal and legitimate. This is the fall out on Punjab but we are fully vigilant and are dealing with it all levels, social, political and administrative.