Chandigarh: Responding to Union home minister Amit Shah‘s vow to root out drugs in Punjab, Punjab minister Aman Arora on Wednesday said the BJP-led Centre should focus on choking drug supplies rather than defaming Punjab.“BJP took out Nasha Mukt Punjab Yatra in the state that featured a rally by Union minister Amit Shah in Jalandhar. We welcome him. Making Punjab drug free should be a collective effort. Any big promises can be made ahead of the assembly elections. But it was during the BJP-SAD govt between 2007-2017 that people first heard of ‘chitta’ and synthetic drugs reached every part of the state. A sort of narco-terrorism was operating, in which political leaders of the then SAD-BJP dispensation, police officers and drug traffickers were working as a nexus,” he added.Arora said the BJP cannot now ignore the record of the Akali govt it supported. “Today, when we look back at that period, Punjab hangs its head in shame before the entire country that such a govt was at the helm for 10 years. BJP is today taking out a yatra against drugs, but I want to ask why it continued to support SAD then,” he said.Replying to a question, Arora said he was always ready for a dope test. In July 2018, he voluntarily took one at a govt hospital in Mohali, becoming the first MLA in Punjab to do so amid discussions around mandatory drug testing for state govt employeesCM Monitoring LPU IssueTo another question about the incidents at Lovely Professional University (LPU), Arora said chief minister Bhagwant Mann had been monitoring the issue. “Govt and AAP are taking the matter seriously. Investigation is on and no one found guilty will be spared,” he said.
