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Much hyped design of ruling Congress in Punjab to frame Akali leaders in drug cases boomerangs

 

 

 


Much hyped design of Congress in Punjab to exploit drug cases for electoral gains flops

Ground Zero

Jagtar Singh

 

The much-hyped cases relating to smuggling of drugs in Punjab seem to have turned into albatross around the neck of the ruling Congress in the state.

This hype has been due to the name of Akali Dal leader and former minister Bikram Singh Majithia having come to be linked with one such case following mention by an accused Jagdish Singh Bhola in the court premises in Mohali some years back. However, no other evidence has ever surfaced against him till now.

This is one of the two cases on which  electoral narrative of the Congress has been anchored, the other being the sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib at Bargari in October 2015.

The Congress in the run up to 2017 Assembly election had promised to take these two cases to the logical conclusion.

These were the two cases that triggered revolt against Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh leading to his replacement by low profile Charanjit Singh Channi. High incumbency against Capt Amarinder Singh rooted in perceived non-performance is a separate issue. The revolt in the Congress had been sparked by the verdict of the Punjab and Haryana High Court rejecting probe in one of the cases of sacrilege by the Special Investing Team headed by Inspector General of Police Kunwar Vijay Partap Singh who subsequently resigned from service and joined the Aam Aadmi Party.

It is pertinent to mention here that AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had submitted apology in the court in a defamation case for levelling allegations against Majithia relating to the drugs case. He had failed to substantiate his allegations. AAP has been treading cautiously since then.

The Channi government has been under pressure on both these cases to produce results and the most vocal leader has been state party chief Navjot Singh Sidhu. Sidhu has been repeatedly saying that there was no bar on the state government to take action on the SIT report on drug smuggling that is lying sealed with the Punjab and High Court.

The investigating agency has been under pressure ever since the change of chief minister to arrest Majithia but the officers have stood to the pressure. Bureau of Investigations Additional DGP S K Asthana has exposed the pressure and the design in his letter to the state police chief citing legal dimensions in reopening the cases. He has proceeded on leave.

In the 40-page letter, Asthana has stated, “I may place on record my apprehensions that further investigation shall require appropriate order by a superior court, which in the present case is the High Court as the trials were conducted before the Special CBI Court, SAS Nagar”.

The state government has been caught on the wrong foot.

Every time the case was scheduled in the High Court, Sidhu would tweet in the morning creating the hype of game changing revelations. Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, now the Deputy Chief Minister incharge of Home department, too has been vocal in proceeding against Majithia.

With this letter, the design of the people in the ruling Congress has hit the wall. The design was to go to the people claiming action had been taken in the two important cases.

In the cases relating to sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib at Bargari in 2015, nothing concrete has so far come out despite questioning Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim. The Akali Dal leadership has been under attack from  a section within the Sikh religio-political matrix too.

It is now clear that the strong anti-incumbency can’t be covered  by going to the people with some sort of action in these two cases.

The sacrilege case is crucial mainly because of the fact that it relates to the period when the Akali Dal was in power with the government headed by Parkash Singh Badal.

It may be recalled here that the cases of sacrilege used to be reported at the time when radical politics got triggered in 1980  with Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale mentioning the same in his speeches. The cases of sacrilege during that period used to be reported both from the gurdwaras and the Hindu temples.

It is to be seen as to how the Congress now redesigns its election strategy as both these main and much hyped issues have fallen flat and there is little time with the party as the elections would be announced any time in the first week of next month.

The leader who should be laughing would be Capt Amarinder Singh.

 

 


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