Special Correspondent
BJP Mahila Morcha stages dharna, destroys liquor bottles
ONGOLE: Some 150 women belonging to the BJP Mahila Morcha staged a dharna in front of the Excise Superintendent office in Prakasam Bhavan here on Saturday demanding that the government close unauthorised liquor outlets called belt shops in villages.
They symbolically broke some liquor bottles to express their protest. BJP State secretary Vanam Jhansi Rani led the agitators. Later, speaking to newspersons, Ms. Jhansi Rani said that as per a government survey, there were 1.5 lakh belt shop in 30,000 village panchayats in the State. Each village, on an average, had five belt shops. She said that the government was fixing targets for liquor sale and forcing the licensees to sell through belt shops to augment its excise revenue. But the belt shops made liquor available to the poor in the village and ruined their health and economy.
MIM criticised
Ms. Jhansi Rani also came down heavily on the MIM for attacking the Bangladeshi novelist Taslima Nasreen in Hyderabad on August 9. Adding insult to injury, the police registered a case against Ms. Taslima acting on the complaint of MIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi that she incited religious passions.
She charged the MIM with creating a scare in the twin cities. She criticised the Congress and the TDP for supporting the MIM in pursuit of their vote bank politics. Ms. Jhansi Rani said that MIM drew inspiration from the Rajakars who wrought havoc with religious harmony in Hyderabad. She demanded that the government derecognise the MIM as a political party and dismiss the MLAs who attacked Ms. Taslima Nasreen from the Assembly.
She blamed the government for failing to provide enough security to the novelist against whom a fatwa was issued and a reward was announced on her head by fundamentalists. It was a clear case of intelligence failure, she felt.