The NC president, Farooq Abdullah, said that people won’t stop consuming alcohol if it is banned and the state will lose revenue, while the PDP says why can’t J&K be a dry state like Gujarat, especially at a time when the administration and government is running a campaign against drugs–Nasha Mukt Abhiyaan.
Both parties are trying to score points over the issue, but none of them have taken any steps to either ban the sale of alcohol or take any steps to regulate its consumption.
“I don’t consume alcohol, but those who do will continue to do so. If they don’t get it here, they will get it from outside,” Abdullah told reporters here. The J&K government has maintained that the liquor sector continues to provide a stable source of income. Over the last three financial years, liquor sales have generated over Rs. 3,450 crore revenue in J&K. Abdullah said that Morarji Desai, when he was the Prime Minister of India had suggested to his father Sheikh Abdullah, in 1970’s to ban alcohol in J&K. “My father had said that if the Government of India will compensate the amount J&K generates from liquor sales, he will ban it,” said Abdullah adding, “today if GoI will help us in a similar way, we will ban alcohol.”
In a veiled reference to PDP, Abdullah said that those who consume liquor didn’t raise hue and cry when wine shops were opened at every nook and corner and village of this region. “They are being critical for the sake of it and I know who is pulling their strings,” said Abdullah.
Earlier, the PDP launched a scathing attack on the NC asking why the elected government cannot ban liquor in J&K as has been the case in the Hindu-majority states like Gujarat and Bihar. “It is sad that Omar Abdullah. who is the CM of the muslim majority, does not respect their sentiments and sensibilities. Why does he take a U-turn on most of the things he had said…NC got a huge mandate of 50 MLAs and bringing an order to ban alcohol in J&K is a 5-minute job,” said Iltija Mufti of PDP.
Members of both parties have exchanged heated arguments on social media, sometimes even trashing the personal lives of each other to score a pointThe J&K CM Omar Abdullah had also made a controversial statement regarding liquor consumption saying that “nobody is forced to visit a liquor shop and it is for those who are allowed by the religion to consume alcohol.”
The exchanges are happening at a time when the Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha-led administration is running a Nasha Mukt Abhiyan in J&K organising awareness rallies and coming down heavily on the drug peddling networks.
“Both drugs and alcohol deeply harm society and stressed that the government cannot justify acting against one while staying quiet on another. J&K is a muslim-majority region where alcohol consumption is socially and religiously discouraged,” said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.
He said that the first step by the new government in Tamil Nadu was to close down 700 liquor shops. “Ongoing campaigns against drug networks will not yield the desired results if action is not also taken against liquor, which is also destroying families,” said Mirwaiz.
