Chandigarh, July 25: Punjab Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema on Friday came down heavily on BJP MP Kangana Ranaut over her recent remarks linking Punjab to the drug crisis in Himachal Pradesh, calling her statements “absurd, irrelevant and attention-seeking.”
“Kangana Ranaut should keep herself in control because she has the habit of making absurd and irrelevant statements to hog media headlines,” Cheema said, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a Cabinet meeting.
Cheema, a senior AAP leader, accused the Mandi MP of lacking basic understanding of the issue and condemned her for making statements that reflect poorly on both society and women.
“There is a greater incidence of drug menace in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and even in Himachal Pradesh than in Punjab,” he said, accusing the BJP of deflecting attention from drug trafficking in its own ruled states.
“Maximum drugs are pushed into the country via Gujarat,” he added.
Cheema defended Punjab, saying the state government was taking active measures to eradicate drugs and it was unfair to vilify the state repeatedly.
The minister’s comments came in response to Ranaut’s remarks outside Parliament in Delhi, where she had claimed that drugs coming from Punjab were destroying Himachal’s youth, comparing the situation to “villages in Punjab with only widows and young women.”
“They lock themselves in rooms, break furniture, scream and cry for help. This is worse than death for them,” Ranaut had said, referring to the suffering of drug addicts.
She had also backed Himachal Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla’s warning that the state could become the next “Udta Punjab” if urgent measures weren’t taken, including building a new de-addiction and rehab centre.
Cheema, however, dismissed such comparisons as misleading and politically motivated, and questioned why Ranaut had not spoken about the real crisis brewing in Himachal and BJP states.
