New Delhi, August 8
Bharatiya Janata Party National General Secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Tarun Chugh, addressing a press conference at the party’s Central Office in New Delhi on Saturday, said that the Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab has today become the country’s biggest example of misuse of state machinery. Chugh said that those who were made protectors have themselves become predators, devouring Punjab’s economy, Punjab’s peace and Punjab’s resources. He said that papers are being leaked and students are living in fear, law and order has collapsed, extortion, collection and torture centres are operating, and the entire Punjab is living in an atmosphere of fear — whoever raises a voice is beaten and casteist remarks are made publicly. Chugh said that he had come today not with allegations but with the record — details of the National Crime Records Bureau, observations of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, orders of the National Green Tribunal, action by the Enforcement Directorate, cognisance taken by the State Scheduled Castes Commission and merit lists issued by Punjab Government’s own recruitment board. He said that this entire record says one thing: the government that was formed to protect the people is today, through that very government, allowing the mafia to run Punjab, and the police are being deployed to suppress the people instead of providing security.
Chugh said that Punjab’s resources are being openly looted — whether it is the Ravi river, the Chakki river in Pathankot, or the Kandi region of Anandpur Sahib, Hoshiarpur, Ropar and Garhshankar, illegal mining is continuing everywhere in broad daylight. Tarun Chugh said that Arvind Kejriwal had come to Punjab and promised a new mining policy under which Rs. 20,000 crore would come into the Punjab treasury every year, that is, Rs. 1 lakh crore in five years, and that the same money would bring an education revolution and a health revolution; but the reality is that leave aside Rs. 20,000 crore, even Rs. 800-900 crore has not reached the treasury. He said that every child in Punjab knows that a “Mann Tax” of Rs. 3,500 is being collected from every truck carrying illegally mined material — meaning that instead of going into the Punjab treasury, the money is going into the coffers of the mafia controlled from the Aam Aadmi Party office. Chugh said that Bhagwant Mann, who before the elections used to stand on stage and recite house numbers to tell where suitcases were reaching, should today tell whose house the remaining Rs. 19,200 crore is reaching. He said that the situation is so serious that the Punjab and Haryana High Court itself had to intervene and seek a status report from the Deputy Commissioner and send the Legal Services Authority for inspection, the National Green Tribunal had to prohibit mining at 85 sites and stop desilting of the Ravi in Gurdaspur, and when a raid took place, Rs. 1.75 crore in cash, representing one day’s collection, was recovered from a single place and Rs. 91 lakh was found lying in the account of the same mafia. He said that when the collection from one site in one day is so high, the scale of the loot taking place at 85 sites can be imagined.
Chugh said that undeclared censorship is in force in Punjab today — what a newspaper will write, what it will print, what television will show and what it will not show, is being decided by the Chief Minister’s Office. He said that those people sent from Delhi, who are accused in connection with the incident involving MP Smt. Swati Maliwal at the Chief Minister’s residence, are today running a parallel censor board in Punjab, which stops newspapers and imposes conditions in the name of “checking”. Chugh said that major newspapers and news agencies are being intimidated so that the “Sheesh Mahal-2” story is not published, and the situation has reached the point where even someone running a small YouTube channel in a village or town is called by the local SHO and instructed about what to run and what to show. He said that those who do not comply face bulldozers and GST raids, and several such cases are pending in the courts today. Chugh said that in a democracy, criticism of the government is not a crime, but in Punjab today, printing the truth itself has been made the biggest crime.
Chugh said that Punjab is the state in India where the population of the Scheduled Caste community is the highest, because when the entire world was divided on the basis of colour and caste, our Gurus gave the message of “Manas ki jaat sabai ekai pehchanbo” and established the tradition of sangat and pangat. He said that the tragedy is that today, in the same Punjab, this very community is facing the greatest atrocities. Chugh said that on Republic Day, statues of Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar Ji were struck with hammers at three places — Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Patiala; an Ambedkar statue was broken at Nangal village near Phillaur; and in Amritsar, where a portrait of the Constitution and a statue of Babasaheb are installed, hammers were used in broad daylight. He said that in September 2023, an FIR was registered in Jalandhar against the son of an Aam Aadmi Party halqa in-charge for the abduction and brutal beating of a Dalit youth, and in February 2025 members of the Valmiki Samaj and Dalit Mahapanchayat had to come out on the streets against the National Convenor of the Aam Aadmi Party. Chugh said that during the tenure of this very government, the matter of Rs. 800 crore of post-matric scholarship for Scheduled Caste students is before the court, where in October 2025 the High Court had to say that the state government was adopting a “contradictory stand” and making “untrue pleadings” — meaning that the entire government is working to protect those who ate the money meant for Dalit children.
Chugh said that the Aam Aadmi Party which had promised “Sikhya Kranti” has given Punjab “Paper Leak Kranti”, and this is not the first incident but the sixth incident in four years. He said that in 2023 the PSEB Class 12 English board examination had to be cancelled after the question paper was leaked, in the same year PSTET Paper-II was cancelled, in 2024 allegations of paper leak and irregularities were made in the Agriculture Development Officer recruitment examination, in 2025 the PSSSB Group-B recruitment examination case reached the Vigilance Bureau, in 2026 packets of question papers were found already open in the Excise and Taxation Inspector recruitment examination, and now 35 arrests have been made in a high-tech racket operating through pen cameras, Bluetooth and WhatsApp in the Pharmacy Officer recruitment examination. He said that the truth is that the Punjab Police itself caught the paper leak mafia, and after the arrests it came to light how big this mafia is, how pen cameras and electronic devices were used — all this is recorded in the FIR, yet the government’s only effort is to suppress the news. Chugh said that the official merit list of PSSSB contains students’ names such as “State Bank of India”, “Smile”, “Photo” and “GIF”; against roll number 125154 the name is “State Bank of India”, this “candidate” appeared in the examination and was even awarded marks. He said that this is not a bona fide lapse but a straightforward mala fide case — and in Delhi, where these same people had demanded the resignation of the Education Minister over the paper leak, an investigation was conducted and the culprits were caught, whereas in Punjab those protecting the mafia are roaming freely.
Chugh said that Punjab’s law and order is today on a ventilator and he is not saying this without facts. He said that according to the National Crime Records Bureau’s “Crime in India 2024” report, with 6,060 cases of possession of narcotic substances for drug trafficking, Punjab ranks first in the country, and with 1,356 incidents of snatching it also ranks first; 1,079 murders were registered in a single year and 48 criminals escaped from jail — and these are the figures registered at police stations, while the situation in 2025 and 2026 is even worse. Chugh said that as soon as the government was formed, the Police Intelligence Headquarters in Mohali was attacked with a rocket launcher in May 2022, three serial blasts took place near Sri Harmandir Sahib in May 2023, a mob of nearly one hundred people attacked the Shingar police station in Ludhiana in July 2024, and between May 2022 and August 1, 2026, 21 grenade and rocket launcher attacks have been recorded on police stations, police posts, a temple, a private hospital and the residence of senior BJP leader Manoranjan Kalia, among others, the complete date-wise list of which he is sharing with the media. He said that by publicly releasing videos of every murder and every grenade attack, criminals are openly challenging law and order, gangsters are giving interviews from inside jails and on the very next day after the police denial they are again giving an interview from the same place — Punjab’s jails have become not only the mafia’s undeclared offices but now the mafia’s studios. Chugh said that today in every small and big city, one will find one hundred to two hundred such traders, industrialists, doctors, lawyers and large farmers who are paying extortion — on one side there is “Mann Tax” on mining and on the other side “Life Tax” on the common man for living; this is the reality of Punjab today.