The Enforcement Directorate has summoned Punjab Revenue Minister Bikram Singh Majithia in a Rs. 6,000-crore international synthetic drug case — a development which could have a bearing on relations between the BJP and its ally, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).
Mr. Majithia is the president of the SAD Youth Wing and younger brother of Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, wife of Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal.
Mr. Majithia confirmed that he had received the summons on the phone on December 19-20 and had been asked to appear before the ED at its Jalandhar office.
Sources said the Enforcement Directorate had prepared some 50 questions for Mr. Majithia.
The lid was blown off the racket by the Punjab Police when on January 5 with the arrest of a Canadian national of Indian origin, Devinder Singh. His questioning revealed that precursor chemicals ketamine, ephedrine and pseudo-ephedrine were being diverted from the medical sector and procured by those running the racket from Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad. These were then smuggled to Canada, where these chemicals were being processed into synthetic drugs by Chinese and Vietnamese nationals.
Mr. Majithia’s name first surfaced in the case when the alleged kingpin in the racket, Jagdish Singh Bhola, a dismissed Deputy Superintendent of Police and international wrestler, said the youth Akali leader and Damanvir Singh, son of the then Punjab Jail Minister, Swaran Sinngh Phillaur, had assisted him in procuring synthetic chemicals and precursors from owners of pharmaceutical units in Himachal Pradesh and Punjab.
The issue then gained political overtones; the Opposition Congress used it to attack the Badals, and the BJP was forced to distance itself from the Akalis. The Badals maintained that the guilty would not be spared.
Badal’s defence However, last month when reports appeared about the ED preparing to summon Mr. Majithia, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had come out in his defence, and stated that as there was no substantial evidence against him, there was no need for Mr. Majithia to resign. He said a Minister could not be sacked because of newspaper reports and allegations by Opposition parties.
This rule had been given the go-by earlier this year when Mr. Phillaur had to resign as Minister after his son, Damanvir Singh, was quizzed in the same case.
