Chandigarh
 
Punjab BJP is taking its anti-drug campaign directly to all 117 Assembly constituencies, but the four ‘Nasha Mukt Punjab Yatras’ beginning September 18 are clearly designed as more than a social awareness drive. With four routes covering nearly 4,000 km, outreach to drug-affected families and local groups, attacks on drugs, law and order, and corruption, and a high-profile culmination with Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Jalandhar on September 30, the BJP is seeking to turn the drug issue into a state-wide political weapon against the AAP Government ahead of the 2027 Assembly elections.
 
The strategy gives the BJP an opportunity to take its campaign beyond press conferences and Chandigarh-based political exchanges and establish a constituency-level presence across Punjab. By physically traversing all 117 seats, the party will be able to combine its anti-drug message with organisational mobilisation, local outreach and identification of issues and networks that could become important when the election campaign gathers pace.
 
“This is not merely a yatra to create awareness against drugs,” said the state BJP president Kewal Singh Dhillon, arguing that the campaign would confront the threat drugs pose to “Punjabiyat”, the state’s culture, values and identity. He accused the AAP Government of failing to curb the menace and of targeting those who questioned its record.
 
The BJP has also brought six former AAP Rajya Sabha MPs into the exercise, adding another political dimension to the campaign. AAP’s former Punjab in-charge Raghav Chadha and its key political strategist Sandeep Pathak, along with educationist Ashok Mittal, attended strategy meetings with BJP Punjab affairs in-charge Satish Poonia in Chandigarh a day before. The other former AAP MPs are also expected to be associated with the campaign. Their involvement gives the BJP access to leaders familiar with AAP’s organisational machinery and Punjab’s political and regional equations.
 
The party is deliberately broadening the drug plank into a larger indictment of governance. Dhillon said the three issues the yatras would highlight were “growing drugs menace, deteriorating law and order, and corruption”, which he alleged extended from the tehsil and police station level to the Chief Minister’s Office.
 
The BJP’s political pitch is that the drug crisis has consequences far beyond addiction. Dhillon said Punjab’s youth, traditionally known for serving in the armed forces and excelling in sports, were being pushed towards drugs, fuelling crime, violence and gang activity. Families, particularly mothers and sisters, were bearing the greatest pain, he said, with some forced to borrow money or sell land and property for treatment.
 
BJP’s national vice-president Manpreet Singh Badal is seeking to give the campaign a sharper policy edge by questioning an approach focused primarily on arrests and FIRs. “The result of the de-addiction campaign should not be measured by the number of cases, but by rehabilitation,” he said.
 
Manpreet said catching drug consignments alone would not break the trade and that the money trail and the wider network had to be targeted. The BJP, he said, would propose an anti-drug intelligence grid involving the Punjab Police, central agencies, Customs, Income Tax, BSF, religious institutions, schools and industry.
 
The message is aimed at putting the AAP Government in a difficult political position: if it claims progress against drugs, the BJP intends to question whether the problem has actually receded on the ground; if it disputes the BJP’s assessment, the party can use the state-wide campaign to amplify complaints from affected families and communities.
 
Former state BJP president Sunil Jakhar also questioned the effectiveness of substitute-drug treatment and stressed the need to provide employment to young people. Dhillon, responding to questions on why the BJP was raising the issue while in opposition, said the party’s campaign was not limited to awareness and would focus on treatment and employment as well.
 
The four routes have been designed to cover virtually the entire state. The first, beginning from Ekta Sthal at Madhopur, Sujanpur, on September 18, will traverse Pathankot, Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Ferozepur, Kapurthala and Jalandhar. The second, starting at Gurdwara Sri Fatehgarh Sahib on September 19, will cover Fatehgarh Sahib, Mohali, Ropar, Hoshiarpur, Nawanshahr and Phagwara.
 
The third, beginning at the Asafwala 1971 War Memorial near the Sadiqi border in Fazilka on September 20, will pass through the southwest and central Malwa belts, including Muktsar, Faridkot, Moga, Malerkotla and Ludhiana. The fourth, starting from Gurdwara Sri Damdama Sahib at Talwandi Sabo on September 21, will cover Bathinda, Mansa, Barnala, Sangrur and Patiala before the campaign moves towards Jalandhar.
 
The BJP plans to meet drug-affected families, NGOs, sports clubs and village committees during the exercise. With Nitin Nabin flagging off the first yatra and Amit Shah scheduled to address the concluding rally, the BJP is signalling that its ‘Nasha Mukt Punjab’ campaign is also its first large-scale state-wide political mobilisation as it builds its pitch for 2027.