SAD-AAP trade barbs on drug menace issue in Punjab

With the drug menace issue emerging as the key poll issue ahead of the 2027 Assembly election, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Wednesday (October 28, 2026) were embroiled in sharp war of words.

After the Punjab Vigilance Bureau filed a supplementary chargesheet against senior SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia in a disproportionate assets case before a special court in Mohali, AAP supremo and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that the AAP government in Punjab is taking the fight against drugs to its conclusion by filing a chargesheet against Mr. Majithia.

Party’s Punjab in-charge Manish Sisodia said, “..The chargesheet filed by the Punjab Police against Bikram Singh Majithia today details how he earned ₹736 crore by selling drugs and deposited the money in bank accounts of his companies. After this chargesheet, Majithia will rot in jail for the rest of his life.”

Hitting out at the AAP, Mr. Majithia accused Mr. Kejriwal of misleading Punjabis by giving the disproportionate assets (DA) case the label of a drug case to suppress the issue of Punjab being pushed into turmoil.

“Mr. Kejriwal was attempting to divert public attention from the situation in Punjab by presenting the case against him as a drug trafficking case,” he said. He added that Mr. Kejriwal had apologised in 2018 for making false allegations against him in connection with drugs. “The AAP leadership was now once again trying to link his name to the drug case for political gains. The Supreme Court had given the government time until March 18, 2025, to establish the allegations against him, but the Kejriwal and Bhagwant Mann governments had failed to do so,” he said.