Empty Chairs, Real Grief: Punjab BJP's Anti Drug Yatra Opens With A Message

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. It set the mood a day before the BJP's Nasha Mukt Punjab Yatra begins. The Yatra starts on September 18, touches all 117 Assembly seats, runs nearly 4,000 kilometres and ends in Jalandhar on September 30.

More than 30 families turned up. Fathers, mothers, siblings who have lost someone to addiction. They spoke, not the politicians, at least not at first. Story after story of sons who never came back, of families who feel the state has done nothing for years.

Punjab BJP president Kewal Singh Dhillon took aim at the Bhagwant Mann government, saying its promise of a drug-free Punjab has gone nowhere.

One name kept coming up: Gulzar Singh, from Toor Banjara village. 

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. "Announcements won't fix this. We are going door to door, village to village," he said.

Drugs are back at the centre of Punjab politics, right on cue with elections approaching. The BJP pulled out crime and health figures to back its case, saying trafficking and addiction are still wrecking families and fuelling crime and extortion in several districts. They also raised the issue of HIV spreading through shared needles.

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.

None of that changed much for the families in that hall on Wednesday. They weren't there for politics. They were there because a chair was empty and someone they loved should have been sitting in it.

The Yatra begins tomorrow. The argument over who is responsible, and who is really doing something about it isn't going away anytime soon.