In a virtual declaration of war against the State’s Congress-led UDF Government over its recent decision to water down its own liquor policy allegedly under pressure from the liquor lobby, Kerala’s Catholic Church on Tuesday decided to launch a series of agitations against the Government over the issue.
Fr TJ Antony, general secretary of the anti-liquor council of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Conference (KCBC), said that the people’s representatives who had been supporting the liquor lobby would have to taste defeat in the coming elections. “They will have to taste defeat not just in the local bodies polls (due in September) but in elections thereafter also,” he said.
The coordination committee of the anti-liquor councils in the State will start an intense agitation against the Government over the issue of the dilution of the liquor policy envisaging total booze ban in ten years by holding a “standing stir” from 11.00 am to 5.00 pm in front of the Ernakulam Town Hall in Kochi on January 1.
The Cabinet of Congress Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had on December 18 decided to water down the liquor policy it had announced on August 22 in the name of “practicality” by disregarding the objections and protests raised by his own party president VM Sudheeran, UDF constituent Muslim league and several social and religious organizations.
As per this, the Government revoked the earlier decision to observe Sundays as no-booze days and to allot licences to run beer and wine parlours to the 418 bars closed on March 31 for lack of required facilities. As per the original liquor policy, the Government had decided not to renew the licences of these 418 bars.
Speaking at a convention of the anti-liquor councils’ coordination committee (Kerala Madya Viruddha Ekopana Samithi) at Kochi on Tuesday, Bishop Joseph Karikkassery, vice chairman of the KCBC’s anti-liquor council, charged the Chandy Government with selling the people of Kerala to the liquor lobby.
Referring to Monday’s “informal” meeting of the Congress legislative Party at which 31 Congress MlAs out of the total 39 had aired support for the changes brought in to the liquor policy, the KCBC panel said, “A wrong is a wrong even if a thousand MlAs support the Government on it. The Government is now lying prostrate at the feet of the rich liquor lobby.”
Bishop Karikkassery alleged that the Chief Minister had watered down the liquor policy in the name of practicalities of which he himself was not convinced. “Chandy should first convince his own conscience as to for whose sake this practicality theory is adopted. What is happening here is a fixed match in the name of practicality,” he said.
The agitations the anti-liquor committees’ coordination panel has planned include a programme by which a million women would send to the Chief Minister letters bearing the message, “No vote for supporters of the liquor lobby.” It will also hold agitations in all the 14 districts in the State.