Uttar Pradesh Congress hit out at the Yogi Adityanath government over the death of people in hooch tragedies and alleged that UP had turned into a "liquor state" against the claim of the Bharatiya Janata Party of bringing in Ram rajya.
"During the Yogi regime, Uttar Pradesh has earned notoriety in manufacturing spurious liquor even as the Yogi Adityanath government has claimed to have transformed Uttar Pradesh and that Ram rajya prevails in the state," UP Congress President Ajay Kumar Lallu said.
He alleged that under the patronage of the Yogi government, the nefarious business of spurious and poisonous liquor was flourishing.
Claiming that nearly 400 people had lost their lives so far after consuming spurious liquor, the UPCC president, addressing a press conference here on Sunday, said, "Supply of poisonous liquor is due to the unholy nexus between the government, officials and liquor mafia which are responsible for the death of nearly 400 people in the last four years of the present BJP rule."
Lallu charged that the state government was ignoring the pleas of the ruling party MLAs, ministers and BJP office-bearers to check this illicit trade but the government had refused to act so far.
The UPCC chief questioned why in spite of hundreds of deaths, no action had been taken against the officers occupying the key posts of the state for the past several years.
The Congress leader said that even after the repeated directions of the Allahabad High Court, the state government had failed to check manufacture and sale of illicit liquor and prevent hooch deaths.
"The court has given instructions for stringent punitive action like preventive detention under UP Gangsters Act but the BJP government has failed to act," Lallu said.