As the Bihar Government tries hard to implement total prohibition, leaders of the ruling Janata Dal(U) are making the mockery of the law and possessing and consuming liquor. Former JD(U) MlA lalan Ram has been caught consuming beer and cursing Nitish Kumar for enforcing prohibition. last month. party's MlC Manorma Devi was suspended after liquor bottles were recovered from her house in Gaya. Ram has also been suspended from the party and deprived of organisational responsibilities.
What is more interesting that since the imposition of the total prohibition, no person belonging to Opposition parties has been arrested for violation of the law. Jana Adhikar Party leader Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav openly blamed that most of the leaders of the ruling alliance were habitual drinkers and could not survive a day without liquor. RlSP national secretary Seema Saxena said the ruling alliance leaders were openly violating the prohibition law and also seen consuming liquor on camera. One of the legislators was seen claiming to have stock of all brands of liquor at his home. “Only the sale of the liquor has been banned not the consumption,” she alleged.
Former JD(U) MlA from Kutumba in Aurangabad district lalan Ram, who has been arrested from near Bihar-Jharkhand borders, had been shown in a video clipping consuming beer and saying that Nitish enforced a “useless” law. Ram who had been MlA in 2010-15 claimed that it was the conspiracy of his political opponents. “I am a Nitish bhakt and cannot imagine saying anything against him,” he pleaded.
However, Ram later changed his statement and said that his video of beer consumption might had been shot at his paternal house which is in Jharkhand where liquor consumption is not illegal. He said he was staying there since February much before the the liquor was banned in Bihar.
JD(U) general secretary Navin Kumar Arya said Ram has been suspended from the party and removed from the position of State organising secretary. leader of Opposition Prem Kumar said the Government has utterly failed to implement the prohibition. He also demanded cancellation of license to liquor manufacturing units in Bihar.
Calling the prohibition policy a farce Bihar BJP president Mangal Pandey said Nitish was indulging in drama as 16 manufacturing units of wine and two of beer were still working. He said these units were producing 8.66 lakh liters of wine and 2.33 lakh liters of beer every month and supplied to neighbouring States and Government was earning revenue. “After the prohibition drama the sale and consumption of illicit liquor has shot up in Bihar,” Pandey alleged.