Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president Capt Amarinder Singh has promised that each and every person involved in producing, smuggling or supply of drugs will be held accountable and punished for destroying an entire generation.He said, he will not even spare Mr Parkash Singh Badal, Sukhbir Badal or Bikram Singh Majithia if their involvement is proved.He also announced that Khanna will be made a district after Congress forms the government in the state.Addressing a largely attended political conference organised here in memory of Shaheed Karnail Singh Issru and to mark the Independence Day function here on Monday, Capt Amarinder reiterated his "zero tolerance" towards drugs. "I have taken an oath on Gutka Sahab that I will finish the drugs within four weeks", he reminded people amidst thundering applause, saying those who pushed Punjab into the drugs deserve no mercy as they have destroyed an entire generation.
The PCC president held the Akalis, particularly the Badals responsible for destroying the agriculture and the youth of Pubjab. He said, while under the Badal's regime youth were pushed into drugs, the farmers were being driven to suicides. He said, the quantum of damage the Badals had done to Punjab has no parallel in history. "So much so, from first position Punjab has come down to twenty-third position among the states in terms of progress and development", he said. The former Chief Minister referred to the huge wealth Badals have amassed during last ten years by grabbing all the profit making businesses. Be it the transport, cable distribution, liquor trade or sand mining, the Badals have their hands in everything, he said.However, he added that he has already announced that all the extra and illegal route permits of the Badals and their henchmen will be distributed among the unemployed youth. Similarly, he added, the monopoly on cable distribution, sand mining and liquor trade will be finished so that the income gets uniformly distributed.Capt Amarinder reiterated his challenge to Mr Badal to say it in front of Akal Takhat that he had not signed the file and approved the construction of the SYL canal as a special favour to his friend and the then Haryana Chief Minister Devi Lal.
He said, thanks to Badal's giving precedence to personal relations over the interests of the state, Punjab was faced with a most difficult situation on the SYL. The PCC president also asked the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who desperately wants to become Punjab Chief Minister, to spell out his stand on SYL as whether he stood with Punjab or Haryana. He said, since his government had already given an affidavit in the court supporting Haryana on the SYL, he owed a clarification and explanation to the people of Punjab as where does he and his party stand on this issue as it is a matter of life and death for them. Speaking on the occasion AICC Secretary Incharge for Punjab, Ms Asha Kumari said, Punjab was looking for change and the Punjabis had made up their mind to return Congress to power. She said, only Congress can retrieve and redeem the state from the mess it has been pushed into all these years. Prominent among those present included Ms Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, Mr Partap Singh Bajwa, Harish Chaudhary, Ravneet Bittu, Gurkirat Singh Kotli and others.