Congress leader Rahul Gandhi opened his party's Punjab election campaign on Wednesday with one of the sharpest personal attacks of his recent political career, accusing Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann of drinking alcohol and being under its influence every evening while Punjab continues to struggle with a drug crisis.
Speaking at the Congress's Insaaf Rally in Sangrur, Gandhi said he had known Mann from their time together in Parliament, and he used that personal history to question whether a leader in Mann's position could credibly lead the fight against substance abuse.
The rally marked the formal launch of the Congress campaign ahead of the Punjab Assembly elections scheduled for early next year, when the party will face the ruling Aam Aadmi Party, its own ally in the opposition INDIA bloc at the national level. That unusual contest — allies in Delhi, rivals in Punjab — gave Gandhi's speech an extra edge, and he did not hold back.
Addressing a large gathering in Sangrur, he recalled sitting with Mann in the Lok Sabha, where Mann, then a Member of Parliament, would joke with colleagues. Gandhi then made the allegation that has since dominated the political debate.
"I was in the Lok Sabha with him. He used to sit with us and tell jokes, right there, sitting among us. By 11:00 am, you could smell alcohol on his breath," Gandhi said, according to reports of the speech.
He immediately added a qualification, saying he was not arguing that Mann should not drink. "Now, I am not saying that Bhagwant Mann shouldn't drink; that 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. You need someone who will fight for Punjab, someone who genuinely feels the pain caused by drugs, someone who carries the pain of Punjab in his heart."
It is important to be clear about the status of that claim. Gandhi presented it as his own recollection from their parliamentary years; it is an allegation made in a political speech, not a finding by any official body, and Mann and his party have not accepted it. The Aam Aadmi Party reacted swiftly and angrily, describing the remarks as a below-the-belt attack unbecoming of a senior national leader.
AAP Delhi president Saurabh Bharadwaj said making such accusations did not serve any public purpose. "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.
The party went further, accusing both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party of jointly targeting Punjab. "This kind of below-the-belt attack by Rahul Gandhi shows how low his politics has stooped. Whether it's the Bharatiya Janata Party or Congress, they have nothing to do with the five elections happening in five states. They've just made Punjab their joint target," Bharadwaj said, according to news agency reports.
AAP also questioned why Gandhi had not made similar remarks against chief ministers of BJP-ruled states, including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami. In its sharper social media responses, the party called Gandhi "Pappu" and claimed that he and his party "hate" Dalits — language that itself drew criticism for lowering the tone of the exchange further.
Beyond the personal allegation, Gandhi's speech was built around a broader political argument about drugs in Punjab. He said narcotics had emerged as the biggest concern facing the state, with the problem extending beyond chitta, or adulterated heroin, to synthetic drugs and the misuse of pharmaceutical substances.
He reminded the crowd that the Aam Aadmi Party had come to power on the promise of eradicating the drug menace, and he asked, pointedly, from which corner of the state drugs had actually been wiped out. "The AAP formed the government after people placed their trust in the party and Bhagwant Mann. What promise did it make? That it will end the drug menace in Punjab. I want to ask the AAP, from which corner of the state has it wiped out drugs?" he said.
That promise, and whether it has been kept, is likely to be one of the central issues of the Punjab campaign. Punjab has lived with a drug problem for decades, cutting across districts, age groups and social classes, and every party that has governed the state has promised to end it.
The AAP government, for its part, has pointed to arrests, seizures and its anti-drug drives as evidence of action, while its critics argue that supply networks remain intact and that addiction continues to devastate families. Gandhi's speech sought to turn that record into a question of leadership credibility: a government cannot fight drugs, he argued, if its own chief minister is not seen to be serious about substance abuse in his personal conduct.
Gandhi also alleged that Punjab was not really being governed from Punjab at all. "Today, the reins of the government are held by Amit Shah and Arvind Kejriwal, while Bhagwant Mann just sits there. Punjab is being run from Delhi," he said, naming the Union Home Minister and the AAP national convenor as the real powers behind the state government.
That claim, too, was rejected by AAP, which presents Mann as the elected head of a state government with its own mandate. But the argument fits a familiar Congress theme in Punjab: that the state's interests are being subordinated to decisions taken in the national capital, whether by the BJP-led Centre or by AAP's own central leadership.
The Sangrur rally also gave Gandhi a platform to return to two of his long-running national arguments. He reiterated his challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for an open debate on the charge that the Congress is anti-national, a charge Gandhi rejects. Attacking the BJP, he said the ruling party talks about discussion in Parliament but does not allow him to speak.
"They say have a discussion in Parliament, but you switch off my mic; you don't let me speak in Parliament," he said. The remark came a day after Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the government is willing to convene a special session of Parliament to hold discussions on the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, daring the opposition to join the debate. Gandhi's camp has long argued that opposition voices are curtailed in the House, a claim the government denies.
The timing of the rally matters. With assembly elections due early next year, the Congress is trying to rebuild its organisation in a state it once governed and where it now sits in opposition. The party's decision to launch the campaign in Sangrur, Mann's home turf and a district with deep political symbolism, was itself a statement of intent.
By choosing Mann's backyard for a direct personal attack, Gandhi signalled that the Congress campaign will not be a gentle one, and that it intends to fight AAP head-on rather than treating the INDIA bloc alliance as a reason for restraint in state elections.
For AAP, the challenge is different. The party must defend its record in Punjab while also managing its national positioning as an opposition party against the BJP. Being attacked by an INDIA bloc ally complicates that positioning, and its angry response suggests it sees Gandhi's remarks not as ordinary campaign rhetoric but as an attempt to damage Mann personally.
The exchange also risks distracting from the substantive policy debate about drugs, treatment, policing and cross-border smuggling — the issues that actually determine whether Punjab's drug problem improves.
What happens next will depend on whether either side steps back from the personal register. Gandhi has promised a government that would function from Punjab rather than being directed by leaders outside the state, and he urged voters to bring the Congress back to power. AAP, meanwhile, has framed the Congress and the BJP as joint adversaries of Punjab.
If the campaign continues in this vein, voters in Punjab may hear a great deal about personalities and very little about the detailed plans — for de-addiction centres, for policing, for employment for young people vulnerable to drugs — that would make a practical difference. The Sangrur rally has set the tone, and it is a confrontational one.
(Reporting based on NDTV and Deccan Herald.)