BJP using central agencies to begin Punjab poll campaign, says CM Mann

Chandigarh, April 17 With Enforcement Directorate (ED) raids at homes of two AAP leaders in three days, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann on Friday called out the BJP for using central agencies to begin its Punjab election campaign, saying a party unable to find 117 candidates is trying to spread fear instead of winning public support.

The Chief Minister emphasised that opposition governments are being harassed through blocked funds, Governors, ED, CBI and the Election Commission, while leaders joining the BJP emerged clean from its ‘washing machine’. He said AAP would not be intimidated, asserting that Punjabis may lose their heads but would never bow in fear, and told the BJP to prepare for 2027 by working among the people instead of relying on raids and pressure tactics.

CM Mann told the media here, "Our country is called the biggest democracy in the world, the world’s largest democracy. Here, people elect the government of their choice. It is the duty of the central government to give every state what is rightfully theirs, above politics and above party lines. But for some time now, we have been seeing that democracy is slowly being strangled.”

"All non-BJP governments are being troubled, either directly by stopping funds from the Centre or through Governors in one way or another." Targeting the BJP, CM Mann said, "The AAP has been specially targeted because it is a party that is growing very rapidly. It has become a national party in barely 10 years. The BJP thinks they can handle the Congress, and they have also been hand in glove with the Congress at times, but they do not want a third force to emerge.”

He pointed out that in this process, they filed fake ED cases against our leaders in Delhi, like in the so-called liquor scam case. "Our senior leaders were sent to jail. Arvind Kejriwal, a sitting Chief Minister, was jailed, along with Deputy CM Manish Sisodia. Our Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh was jailed. Whoever worked behind the scenes, any ‘karyakartas' or policymakers, all were jailed, threatened, intimidated, and told to join the BJP or face trouble. This politics of fear and intimidation is continuing."

Flagging a clear pattern across the country, he shared, "Across the country, in Bengal, from the DGP onwards, officers have been changed because elections are coming. They do not win elections through the people. They win elections through the ED, the CBI, the Election Commission, and other departments used for intimidation."

"A few days ago, the ED raided the premises of AAP Rajya Sabha MP Ashok Mittal, who runs Lovely Professional University, where around 4,000 students study. Students from more than 35 countries come there to study. But because he is an Aam Aadmi Party Rajya Sabha MP, suddenly he became tainted," the CM added.

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