Arrested in dramatic fashion by the Punjab Police on Thursday in a drug trade case dating back to 2015, Punjab Congress leader Sukhpal Singh Khaira was once defended by the AAP and current Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann in the same case in 2017. Senior Congress leaders in 2022 had protested against Khaira’s entry into the party citing this case.

Khaira has alleged political vendetta on part of the Bhagwant Mann government in arresting him in the 2015 case which involved smuggling of drugs into Fazilka from Pakistan. Khaira then was part of the Congress party and the case was filed under the Akali-BJP rule in the state. However, later in 2015, Khaira jumped ship to the Aam Aadmi Party.

“People who speak the truth are being targeted… we are behind Khaira. He has been give relief by the Supreme Court also. Neither is his name in the FIR nor in the chargesheet. Our legal team has said there is nothing in this case and it is just political vendetta. I will raise it in the Lok Sabha,” Mann had said in 2017 when non-bailable warrants were issued against Khaira. He said the case was a joint conspiracy by Congress and Akali Dal.

The AAP government, however, is now citing a “fresh probe” to arrest Khaira who won an Assembly seat on an AAP ticket in 2017, but quit the party later and also spent 75 days in jail.

The Special Investigation Team is now headed by the same officer who was SSP of Fazilka in 2015 when the case was first lodged, and whom Khaira had accused of personal vendetta. Khaira has said he was not even summoned by the new SIT, but arrested.

In 2022, Captain Amarinder Singh had inducted Khaira back into the Congress. The party is now defending him with the state leadership of Partap Singh Bajwa and Raja Singh Warring leading the charge. But in 2022, Congress leaders objected to his induction citing the same case and pointed how he had been jailed in connection with it.

“How can our party give a ticket to someone who is tainted by drug charges? It will be difficult for Congress party and its contestants to defend the indefensible that on one hand we have sworn that we will eliminate drugs and on the other hand we are giving party ticket to a person who is in jail accused of money laundering which he accumulated from drugs,” Congress leader Gurjeet Singh wrote to Sonia Gandhi then.

Khaira, however, won the seat for the Congress in 2022 after getting bail.

The AAP government in Punjab has been under fire for not being able to control the drug menace in the state in the 18 months it has been in power. The present action is seen as an act to showcase how the Mann government is going after the ‘big fish’ in drug trade, sources told News18.