Punjab is ready for a change: Captain Amarinder Singh

Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president and former chief minister, plans to visit all 117 constituencies in the state in the run-up to the elections. ET Magazine caught up with him on the campaign trail to Derra Bassi constituency, just off the Chandigarh-Delhi national highway. Excerpts from the interview:

On a strategy to tackle drug addiction
India doesn’t have a national drug policy and I had raised the issue of unveiling one to tackle the menace with two prime ministers, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh. Some states that can grow opium legally and sell drugs make revenues from it and hence don’t allow such a policy.

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But those are traditional narcotic substances and they are expensive. In Punjab, the big problem now is a substance called chitta. This needs to be blocked and the nexus between manufacturers, corrupt policemen and dealers needs to be broken. We know who makes it and we know who makes money on this trade; but there is connivance of the government officials too, apart from political patronage. I intend to form a task force with capable police officers, if we are voted to form government, and it will be only a matter of days before chitta is stopped completely in the state.

On his election campaign
Right now, we have three programmes running simultaneously. The first is called Halke Vich Captain (the captain in his constituency), an interaction and Q&A session — no bhashan (speeches) from me. The second part in the afternoon is meetings with district-and block-level Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) members. The third part, Jago Punjab, is being run by Youth Congress leaders who are going door-to-door to talk to people. Party general secretaries have been put in charge of every constituency in the state.

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On AAP’s popularity
Punjab is ready for a change and the Akali-BJP government, which is steeped in corruption, faces strong anti-incumbency. The AAP’s early gains seem to be dwindling and, for some reason, they seem to have stopped their campaign activities. The advantage is definitely with us.

On the appointment first of Kamal Nath and now of Asha Kumari as the AICC general secretary in charge of Punjab?
Kamal Nath would have been a great general secretary to work with; I have a great rapport with him. I was in Delhi after India Gandhi’s assassination and was heavily involved in the work at the refugee camps. I had never heard Kamal Nath’s name coming up in connection with the riots. I now welcome the appointment of Asha Kumari.