Thirty chairs sat empty at the Punjab BJP office. Because of drugs, each one had a name pinned to it, a young person the party says died. The Yatra starts on September 18, touches all 117 Assembly seats, runs nearly 4,000 kilometres and ends in Jalandhar on September 30.
It set the mood a day before the BJP’s Nasha Mukt Punjab Yatra begins.
Thirty chairs sat empty at the Punjab BJP office. Each one had a name pinned to it, a young person the party says died because of drugs.
“Announcements won’t fix this. Punjab BJP president Kewal Singh Dhillon took aim at the Bhagwant Mann government, saying its promise of a drug-free Punjab has gone nowhere. BJP leaders say he confronted state minister Harpal Singh Cheema publicly over drugs flowing freely in his area, after his own son got addicted. They allege he was harassed for it and later died by suicide. The government has rejected the claim. A probe is on. Dhillon didn’t mince words. The Mann government isn’t backing down either. Ministers say their own crackdown is showing results and have accused the BJP of using a genuine crisis for votes.
We are going door to door, village to village,” he said.
