The Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee and the Oommen Chandy government have failed to arrive at a consensus over the fate of the 418 liquor bars that had been closed down because of poor standards.
A cold war of sorts between leaders has erupted as a result of which it has not been possible to convene its government-party coordination committee to discuss policy issues related to other sectors.
The committee last met on April 27 and there has been no attempt to hold dialogues for consensus. The United Democratic Front has also deferred a decision, leaving it to the Congress to take the call on the fate of the bars.
Without the Congress sorting the issue out, the possibilities of convening the UDF committee meeting also appear to be remote.
The High Court had last month directed the government to pronounce its policy on liquor bars.
Since a consensus has not materialised, the government will have to buy time to formulate the policy, sources pointed out.
The Chief Minister and Excise Minister K. Babu have been maintaining that there are several legal and administrative issues that the government needs to consider prior to finalising its policy on the reopening of the bars.
Mr. Chandy, however, has restrained himself from getting into an open confrontation with KPCC chief V.M. Sudheeran.
The government stance is that the Supreme Court had not directed the closure of these 418 bars, which were classified as sub-standard in a special report of the Accountant General.
The one-man commission, headed by Justice Ramachandran Nair, also did not recommend their closure. It suggested giving permission only to the bars that maintained two-star standards, besides giving an opportunity to the others to comply with the standardisation norms.
Many of these bars had come into being in the early 1990s and had been seeking a resolution to their status since mid-1990s when classification system was introduced.
The Chief Minister’s camp views Mr. Sudheeran’s moves as an attempt divert public attention from the core debate related to the standardisation of liquor bars.
