VHP International Working President Praveen Togadia on Sunday hailed Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for enforcing total prohibition in the state and said he would like to see a countrywide ban on consumption of liquor.
“I salute Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for enforcing total prohibition in Bihar,” said Togadia.
The measure would help alleviate problems in the lives of the people and their families by putting to good use crores of rupees that they used to spend on consumption of liquor, he said.
Making an appeal to other states to impose liquor ban, he said the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) under its initiative ‘India Health line’ had launched a nationwide de-addiction campaign by its team of doctors.
The de-addiction campaign had received good response from the people in several states, Togadia said and exuded confidence that the country would be made liquor-free one day.
The Nitish Kumar government has enforced total prohibition in Bihar in April this year, banning consumption, marketing and manufacture of liquor.
However, thousands of ex-Army men on Friday took out a protest march from Danapur cantonment to Patna against the ban on liquor for them and submitted a memorandum to the Governor.
Under the amended state excise and prohibition law altogether 70 Army personnel, including officers, have been sent to jail during the last four months. In all, altogether 13,839 people have been arrested and sent to jail in the State since April 5 to August 31.
The police stopped the march a few yards from the Raj Bhavan but, later, a five-member delegation of the Ex-Servicemen League went up and submitted their memorandum there. “We’ve been assured action in 15 days by the Raj Bhavan… if nothing happens all the Army personnel in the State will take out an unprecedented protest march and fill the historic Gandhi Maidan,” said N.K. Singh, president of the league. Governor Ram Nath Kovind, however, is yet to give assent to the new “feared and draconian” Excise and Prohibition Act, 2016.
