The drug menace has been one of the most dominant political issues in Punjab for more than one-and-a-half decades. The most high-profile drug smuggling case, involving an alleged Rs 6,000 crore synthetic drug racket, came to light in 2012 when an FIR was registered over it in Fatehgarh Sahib.
This drug scandal set off a political storm in 2014 when Punjab Police’s dismissed deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Jagdish Bhola, one of the accused in the case, named Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia during a court appearance. Bhola alleged that Majithia had links to a drug trafficking network.
At the time, Majithia was the revenue minister in the SAD-BJP coalition government headed by Parkash Singh Badal. He was considered one of the most powerful ministers because of his close ties with the Badal family.
Majithia, who is the brother-in-law of SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal, was booked in a drug case under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act in December 2021 during the tenure of the chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi-led Congress government.
On Wednesday, the Vigilance Bureau of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led Punjab government arrested 50-year-old Majithia after conducting raids at multiple premises linked to him, including his homes, across Punjab.
The Vigilance Bureau registered a disproportionate assets (DA)-related FIR under the Prevention of Corruption Act against Majithia that stems from the 2021 NDPS case, accusing the Akali Dal leader of having allegedly accumulated wealth while he was a minister from 2007 to 2017.
In March 2016, a former SAD MLA and Majithia confidant, Bony Ajnala, wrote to then CM Parkash Singh Badal to allege that one of his friends, Maninder Singh Bittu Aulakh, had been “wrongly implicated” in the 2012 drug smuggling case “under pressure” from Sukhbir Badal and Majithia. Ajnala was then also the chief parliamentary secretary in the SAD-BJP government.
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Although such allegations were not proved in the courts, they provided ammunition to both the Congress and the AAP, who used it to target the Akali Dal and Badals while projecting Majithia as a symbol of the drug problem in Punjab. The two parties used it as part of their campaigns in the 2017 and 2022 Assembly polls, which were clinched by the Congress and the AAP respectively.
Stung by the AAP’s campaign, Majithia filed criminal defamation cases in 2016 against AAP leaders Arvind Kejriwal, Sanjay Singh, and Ashish Khetan over their allegations linking him to the drug trade in the state. In March 2018, both Kejriwal and Khetan issued written apologies, admitting that their accusations were unfounded. However, Sanjay Singh refused to apologise and continues to face trial in the defamation matter.
During his stint as the Congress CM, Captain Amarinder Singh did not take action against Majithia, which caused discontent within the party. One of the key aides of Captain Amarinder, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, the current Gurdaspur MP, developed differences with him over the issue. Accusing Amarinder of “going soft” on the SAD leader, the then minister Randhawa mobilised 40 Congress MLAs to demand action against Majithia over his alleged drug smuggling links.
Capt Amarinder’s successor Channi oversaw the registration of a drug-related FIR against Majithia in December 2021. However, the case was seen to have focused on alleged drug networks in Canada, not Punjab, and did not apparently establish Majithia’s involvement in drug smuggling in the state. Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu had then also questioned the “seriousness” of the FIR and the government’s “intent”. The case was filed just before the February 2022 Punjab Assembly elections, allowing Majithia to campaign before his arrest. He spent over five months in Patiala jail and was granted bail in August 2022 by the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
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Majithia pushback
Soon after coming out of jail, Majithia emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of the Bhagwant Mann-led AAP government.
Days before the Vigilance Bureau’s action, Majithia had intensified his criticism of the AAP government over the drug issue. The Akali Dal leader had uploaded videos on social media showing “drug addicts” on the streets of Amritsar, even as he questioned the effectiveness of the government’s anti-drug campaign “Yudh Nashian Virudh”. He also raised concerns about reported drug-related deaths in the state, alleging failures of the administration and law enforcement agencies.
Leading the AAP’s campaign in the 2022 elections, Bhagwant Mann had in his trademark satirical style used Punjabi folk rhymes to take aim at Majithia, questioning his shift from a drug case accused to anti-drugs campaigner.
In the polls, Majithia contested from Amritsar East against Navjot Singh Sidhu, but both lost to the AAP candidate. His wife, Ganieve Kaur, entered politics and won her debut election from the Majitha seat. It was one of only three seats won by the SAD in 2022, and with the other two party MLAs having turned rebel later, Kaur currently remains the party’s sole legislator in the 117-member Assembly.
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However, despite having been at the centre of the AAP and the Congress’s attacks for years, especially on the drug issue, Majithia has been a vocal Opposition leader during the regimes of both the parties.
Both the governments also struggled to make any notable progress in curbing drug smuggling, which continues to remain a major public concern in the state. Majithia’s targeting of their governments’ alleged “failures” in curbing the drug menace has been more “embarrassing” for the AAP and the Congress, given their “inability” to prove their drug-related allegations against him so far.
