BJP launched four simultaneous anti-drug yatras covering nearly 4,000 km across all 117 constituencies.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has brought out almost its entire political heavyweights list for its high profile Nasha Mukt Punjab Yatra, but the campaign is yet to generate the kind of public participation the party had hoped for in Punjab. The contrast is becoming increasingly visible as the 13-day campaign enters its final phase. BJP national president Nitin Nabin launched the yatra from Madhopur on September 18, followed by Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal and Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan at the other three starting points. Delhi minister Kapil Mishra joined the campaign in Punjab on Friday, while Union Home Minister Amit Shah is scheduled to address the concluding rally in Jalandhar on September 30.
Yet, despite the presence of one senior BJP leader after another, the yatra has struggled to develop into the mass public movement that the Punjab BJP had projected when announcing it. The BJP proposed the campaign as a state-wide mobilisation against drugs, with four simultaneous yatras, covering nearly 4,000 kilometres and all 117 Assembly constituencies. The stated objective was to turn the fight against drugs into a “mass public movement”.
The ground response, however, has so far remained heavily dependent on the BJP’s organisational network rather than a visible spontaneous public mobilisation. This is particularly significant because the BJP has chosen one of Punjab’s most emotive issues for the campaign. Drug addiction has affected families across the state for years and has been at the centre of political campaigns by successive governments and opposition parties. The BJP’s expectation was that a state-wide yatra focused exclusively on the issue would attract people beyond the party’s own cadre. Instead, the campaign has been accompanied by political counterattacks, questions over the Centre’s role in checking the flow of drugs and competing anti-drug campaigns by other parties.
The Aam Aadmi Party has challenged the BJP’s credentials on the issue, while farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher questioned the Centre’s responsibility for preventing drugs from entering Punjab through the international border with Pakistan. The BJP has continued to insist that the campaign is receiving an encouraging response. Akashvani reported the party’s description of the response as “remarkable”. Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal has also described the yatra as a social reform campaign rather than merely a political exercise, however, the public response remains the campaign’s biggest challenge.
The BJP itself had set an ambitious target when it announced the yatra. Punjab BJP president Kewal Singh Dhillon had said the campaign would mobilise people in every Assembly constituency and transform the anti-drug fight into a mass movement. The question now is whether the party can demonstrate that mobilisation before the campaign concludes.The deployment of national leaders has been extensive.
Nabin opened the campaign in Pathankot. Rekha Gupta joined it in Fatehgarh Sahib. Meghwal launched another leg from Fazilka, while Shivraj Chouhan participated in Talwandi Sabo. Kapil Mishra has now joined the campaign, and Amit Shah is being brought in for the final rally in Jalandhar. The concentration of leadership is striking because the BJP is simultaneously trying to build its organisation across Punjab ahead of the 2027 Assembly elections. But a procession of senior leaders cannot by itself create a public movement.
The September 30 Jalandhar rally will therefore be particularly important for the Punjab BJP. The four yatras are scheduled to converge in the city after travelling throughout the state, with Amit Shah as its principal speaker. For the BJP, the issue is not whether Punjab has a drug problem. There is widespread political and public acknowledgement that drugs remain a serious concern. The immediate challenge is whether the party can turn that concern into public participation in its own campaign. So far, the BJP has succeeded in putting its national leadership behind the Nasha Mukt Punjab Yatra.
