As Punjab heads towards the 2027 Assembly elections, cricketer-turned Rajya Sabha MP Harbhajan Singh’s X account has emerged as a new political battleground, with the BJP leader using videos of alleged drug abuse, crime, poor infrastructure and government schools to target the Bhagwant Mann government. Since joining the BJP after leaving the Aam Aadmi Party, Harbhajan has increasingly turned to social media to amplify local grievances and demand government action. But his campaign has also triggered questions over whether the videos he shares are authentic, current and correctly located. Of seven prominent videos shared by him over the past two-and-a-half months, two have been found to carry incorrect context. On August 10, Harbhajan posted a video showing youths apparently in a drug-induced, “zombie-like” state. He described it as a painful reflection of Punjab’s drug crisis and questioned the government’s response. A subsequent fact-check established that the footage was actually from Sri Ganganagar in Rajasthan. Punjab Police appealed to social-media users to verify content before sharing it. ਨਜ਼ਰ ਲੱਗ ਗਈ ਯਾਰ ਸਾਡੇ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਨੂੰ… 💔 ਸਰਕਾਰਾਂ ਨੇ ਕੀ ਹਾਲ ਬਣਾ ਦਿੱਤਾ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਦਾ ਤੇ ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਨੌਜਵਾਨਾਂ ਦਾ। ਰੋਣਾ ਆਉਂਦਾ ਏ ਇਹ ਸਭ ਦੇਖ ਕੇ। 😢 ਬਖ਼ਸ਼ ਦਿਓ ਮੇਰੇ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਨੂੰ… ਮਾਫ਼ ਕਰੋ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਨੂੰ। 🙏 ਕਿੱਥੇ ਲੈ ਆਏ ਓ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਨੂੰ? ਜਿਹੜਾ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਕਦੇ ਚੜ੍ਹਦੀ ਕਲਾ, ਹਿੰਮਤ ਤੇ ਬਹਾਦਰੀ ਲਈ ਜਾਣਿਆ ਜਾਂਦਾ ਸੀ, ਅੱਜ ਉਸੇ ਪੰਜਾਬ… — Harbhajan Turbanator (@harbhajan_singh) August 10, 2026 Harbhajan responded by posting another video concerning drug abuse and challenging his critics to establish whether that footage, too, was from Rajasthan. His argument was that even if one video was wrongly attributed to Punjab, the state’s drug problem remained a genuine concern. A similar controversy erupted on August 19, when Harbhajan shared a video purportedly showing poor toilet facilities at Government High School, Jalla, in Fatehgarh Sahib. He questioned the AAP government’s claims of an “education revolution”. Education Minister Harjot Singh Bains rejected the claim, saying the footage was old. It was subsequently established that the video dated back to 2018, while Bains shared visuals of the school’s present condition. The controversies have allowed AAP to question Harbhajan’s credibility. Punjab AAP spokesperson Neel Garg said he should have verified the material before posting it, accusing the BJP of using misleading content to create a negative image of the state government. But the criticism has not slowed Harbhajan’s social-media offensive. He has continued posting videos allegedly showing problems across Punjab, including from constituencies represented by AAP MLAs and ministers. At one point, he tagged fact-checker Mohammed Zubair, asking him to verify the date and location of videos. Harbhajan has also accused critics of being “paid trolls” and argued that the focus should remain on the issues rather than the provenance of individual clips. Speaking to The Indian Express, he said the debate should not be reduced to whether a particular video was old or recorded elsewhere. “Don’t just go by the videos. Go by the issues,” he said, arguing that the larger question was whether all was well in Punjab and whether the problems represented by such footage needed to be addressed. His approach reflects a broader shift in political campaigning, where viral videos and local complaints can quickly become statewide political talking points. For Harbhajan, the strategy offers a way to remain directly engaged with Punjab’s electorate without relying solely on conventional political statements. For AAP, however, every disputed post provides an opportunity to portray the BJP leader’s campaign as an exercise in misinformation.
