Personal Attacks In Punjab Amid Bid To Show Who's Sober Enough To Run State

The Opposition parties in the centre who are fighting the BJP on several fronts are busy pulling the rug from under each other in the pind. This is visible in the way top leaders of the Congress party and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have been fighting. From citing issues critical to the public such as ending the drug menace in the border state, the battles have become personal.

Recent comments made by Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann of the AAP clearly showed missiles loaded with personal attacks being launched from both sides.

Yesterday, at the Congress's 'Insaaf Rally' in Mann's territory of Sangrur, Gandhi made a direct reference to Mann's controversial past in what seemed like a strong attack that Gandhi had been powering up for by taking potshots of increasing intensity in recent times.

In a post on X, Gandhi said "a dangerous pattern is visible in Punjab's AAP government - if you question government failure, the answer will be threats and torture," and demanded the filing of a police case against state Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema following the death of a 47-year-old man, Gulzar Singh, who had questioned the minister on narcotics.

Mann saw what Gandhi had done and responded the same day, "Rahul Gandhi ji, do not do politics over dead bodies. Punjabis do not like this kind of politics."

The exchange continued to rise in intensity after anti-drug activist Parvinder Singh Jhota was shot dead in Mansa. Pointing to the case, Gandhi said on X that "raising a voice against drugs in Punjab has now become a death sentence". The AAP replied that he should "get your own party in order."

The showdown finally happened in Sangrur yesterday when Gandhi in his criticism of the AAP government in Punjab shared snippets of information from the long past, from a time before Mann became chief minister.

Recalling their days together as MPs, Gandhi told the crowd in Sangrur, "I was in the Lok Sabha with him. He (Mann) used to sit with us and tell jokes, right there, sitting among us. By 11 am, you could smell alcohol on his breath."

"Now, I am not saying that Bhagwant Mann shouldn't drink. This is his personal affair. If he chooses to drink, that is entirely his own business. But if you truly want to fight the menace of substance abuse, your chief minister cannot be under the influence every single evening," Gandhi said.

It did not take long for Gandhi to get hit with personal attacks, having already escalated the war of words to a whole new personal level. AAP Delhi chief Saurabh Bharadwaj took the lead.

"Allegations of drug use have also been made against Rahul Gandhi. But making accusations doesn't achieve anything. I feel that at Rahul Gandhi's level, he really shouldn't be making such cheap comments," Bharadwaj said, proving yet again a situation where the two Opposition 'partners' in the Centre are united and at war at the same time.

In the state, however, the two parties have drawn clear battlelines with the INDIA bloc - of which the AAP is no longer a formal ally in fighting elections - taking swipes at Mann's office as being run by remote control shared between Amit Shah and Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi.

The AAP has responded that Congress leaders are election tourists parachuted into a state where the outfit is broken beyond repair.