In Rajasthan’s Ganganagar, an election under the looming shadow of a drug crisis

BSF seizing heroin from Ganganagar sector dropped by drone. (Express photo)

Sukhvir Singh, a resident of Kaliyan village, echoes Ajami’s concerns, adding that medicinal tablets used as drugs are also sold in the village pharmacies. “In this small village there are 8 medical shops where different medicines used for drugs are sold. Most of the youths, aged between 15 years and 35 years, are losing themselves to drugs and we have complained many times to the authorities but no one helps. We have questioned politicians in election rallies who just give assurances,” he says.

Ganganagar is among Rajasthan’s 12 Lok Sabha seats going to polls on April 19, where the issue of drug abuse among youths has been raised by various contenders in their campaigns, which locals however dismiss as just “lip service”.

The Ganganagar parliamentary constituency comprises Sri Ganganagar and Hanumangarh districts, which border Punjab state as well as Pakistan. The two districts are known as “mini-Punjab of Rajasthan” because of the sizeable population of Punjabis and the influence of the Punjabi culture and language there.

As the drug menace reached its peak in Punjab in recent years, drug traffickers made these Rajasthan border districts their next target. According to the local police, the drug menace in Ganganagar has shot up in the last decade, mainly due to its smuggling through the Pakistan border. For some years the surveillance of security forces at the Punjab border has increased, so the smugglers have now been using the Ganganagar region adjoining Pakistan to push drugs into India by drones.

Many locals in the region complain that despite the devastating impact of drug abuse on a large number of families, the leading parties, including the BJP and the Congress, have merely given assurances about addressing the

problem but nothing substantial has been done till now. “In every election, the drug issue is raised at the rallies of various candidates, only to be forgotten afterwards,” they say.

Ahead of the November 2023 Assembly elections, which the BJP swept to oust the Congress from power, both the parties had raised the drug abuse issue, as they have been doing now, several local residents point out.

This time, the BJP replaced its sitting MP Nihalchand Meghwal to field Priyanka Balan Meghwal from the Ganganagar seat. In the 2019 polls, Nihalchand had trounced the Congress’s Bharat Ram Meghwal by over 4 lakh votes.

The SP said the heroin worth Rs 2,000-Rs 4,000 per gram is expensive and largely unaffordable for locals, adding that it is usually meant for customers in Punjab.

Priyanka Balan told The Indian Express that the BJP government has already taken several steps to curb the sale of certain medicinal drugs through pharmacies and that she has also been taking it up in her rallies.

Her rival, Congress candidate Kuldeep Indora, while addressing gatherings in Ganganagar’s rural belt, claimed that if elected he will highlight the issue in power corridors in New Delhi.

According to the Sri Ganganagar police, more than Rs 100 crore of drugs has been seized by them in multiple operations in 2023. BSF sources told The Indian Express that during the last year they confiscated in the district 76 kg heroin.

Gaurav Yadav, Sri Ganganagar SP, said a lot of drug consignments is dropped from drones sent from the Pakistan border. “The BSF has intercepted hundreds of crores worth heroine packages that were dropped at the border. As per our investigations, 100% of these packages are for Punjab. Punjab-Pakistan border area has become very strict recently, so smugglers have started dropping packages at Ganganagar as it is adjacent to Punjab. Their modus operandi is to send a man from Punjab who will pick up the dropped packages.”

The SP said the heroin worth Rs 2,000-Rs 4,000 per gram is expensive and largely unaffordable for locals, adding that it is usually meant for customers in Punjab.

Jasmeet Singh, a Hanumangarh-based anti-drugs activist, said that a teenager as young as 12 years old, has been found to be taking drugs. “People who have money take the heroin and other crushed medicinal tablets, heat it to make a liquid and insert it with syringes. Over time, the veins of drug addicts get blocked due to excess usage. We went to every politician and government officials but no one has taken this seriously due to which this problem is rising every day,” said Jasmeet.

There are many others who underline that despite the grave consequences of the drug menace for a large section of the electorate the issue has barely got the focus from the candidates in the fray.

A police official, on the condition of anonymity, said, “Most of these drug mafias are functioning with the support of politicians. If we catch a truck or a drug smuggler, we have to let him go due to political pressure. We have done various raids on pharmaceutical companies supplying these medicines without any proper records. What is the medical department doing and who is supporting them? The police alone cannot control drug problems when this is such a big nexus.”

A Ganganagar farmer said both the BJP and the Congress have “ignored” the drug abuse issue in their poll campaigns.