While putting up posters for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections on Wednesday, the ruling Janata Dal-United (JD-U) sought to make Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s ambitious anti-liquor programme a poll issue in the dry State. Opposition leaders, on the other hand, alleged that prohibition would have an “adverse impact” on the ruling alliance in the elections. Illicit liquor continues to be seized from different parts of the State in trucks and vans laden with oranges, potatoes and gas cylinders.
“ Hamara sankalp sharab mukt , dahej mukt … bal-vivah mukt rashtra (Our resolve is liquor free, dowry free…child marriage free nation),” said one of the huge posters put up by the ruling JD(U) outside the party’s office in Patna on Wednesday.
The posters feature smiling pictures of party president Nitish Kumar along with R.C.P. Singh and Basistha Narayan Singh. “Yes, the liquor ban by our government will be an effective poll issue in the coming Lok Sabha election and our party leaders will take this to the voters…it has made a drastic change in the social milieu of the State, especially in rural areas,” said JD(U) leader and party spokesperson Neeraj Kumar. Other party leaders, too, asserted that the ban of liquor was a “revolutionary step” by the Nitish Kumar-led government and, “It will definitely be a poll issue.”
However, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress leaders said that prohibition would be an issue in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls but for “different reasons.”
“What kind of liquor ban is in the State when people say liquor is available at their doorstep in the black market? Recently, we have read a series of reports in newspapers and heard [that] drunk people [are] firing in celebration during marriage ceremonies, killing spectators and relatives…the issue may have a reverse impact on the ruling party,” senior RJD leader and party vice president Shivanand Tiwari told The Hindu .
Similarly, senior State Congress leader and party MLC Prem Chandra Mishra said, “In the name of prohibition, people from only the poor and lower strata were arrested and sent to jail…and who doesn’t know liquor is freely available in every corner of the State in the black market?”
“Ban on daaru aur baalu (liquor and sand) will cost dearly in the LS poll for the ruling alliance,” said RJD leader and party spokesperson Bhai Birendra.
The Nitish Kumar government enforced a total ban on liquor in the State from April 5, 2016 through the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016. Earlier, the Act had stringent provisions of punishment but in June 2018, the State amended some of the provisions criticised as draconian, with allegations of the harassment of common people by government officials under the guise of the new Prohibition Act.
Mr. Kumar had been reiterating that the ban on liquor has brought a “social transformation and poor families have benefited the most from it.” However, later reports alleged that people from the poor and lower strata of society had been sent to jail under the Act. “It seems only poor people were drinking liquor in the State…the rich and upper caste people have been drinking apple or orange juice….have you heard of any upper caste man or official in the State being caught and sent to jail under the anti-liquor Act?” asked Ram Jivan Manjhi, a Dalit activist from Gaya.
Meanwhile, liquor bottles continue to be seized from trucks and vans laden with oranges, potatoes and gas cylinders from different parts of the State. On March 12, illicit liquor bottles worth ₹20 lakh were seized from a truck in the Gopalgunj district, which was laden with potatoes. Similarly, 300 liquor cartons worth ₹30 lakh was seized from a truck stuffed with an orange consignment on March 6 from the same Gopalganj district.
Sources say illicit liquor bottles funelled into the State reach buyers in ambulances, postal vans, truck and cycle tubes, empty gas cylinders, school bags and other ‘innovative’ means. Nearly 15 lakh litres of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) and 8 lakh litres of country-made liquor have been seized in the State, said an Excise Department official.
“Consuming or supplying liquor is now not only a violation of the model code of conduct but a criminal act that can land one in jail,” said the State’s Additional Chief Electoral Officer Sanjay Singh.
