Patna: RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav attacked the Nitish Kumar government over the hooch tragedy in Bihar's Rohtas district, which has claimed four lives, and charged that the ban on sale and consumption of alcohol in the state was "only on paper".
Four persons had died after drinking spurious liquor last night at Danwar village of Rohtas district of Bihar, where a complete prohibition was clamped in April 2016. Eight police officials have been suspended in connection with it.
Speaking to reporters, Yadav, who is also the Leader of Opposition in Bihar assembly said, "What has happened in Rohtas is not the first incident of its kind since the complete prohibition was announced in Bihar. We (RJD) were then a coalition partner in the government and had supported Nitish Kumar's move. But as things have turned out, prohibition seems to have been implemented only on paper", Yadav told reporters.
He said it appears that Kumar had announced prohibition only because of the "prime ministerial ambitions that he nursed at that time". "He needed an issue on the basis of which he could market himself outside Bihar."
"Kumar used to hold meetings in states like Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh to press the demand for complete prohibition across the country. Now as an ally of the BJP, which is in power in all these states, can he hold similar public gatherings in these states ?" Yadav asked.
Training his guns at BJP, Yadav said "Kumar's current allies used to call the prohibition law in Bihar draconian. Now they are in power in the state. How will the ruling dispensation now muster the moral strength required to strictly enforce the ban on sale and consumption of liquor?"
He said the suspension of police officials after the death of four persons in the liquor tragedy is "an eyewash".
"The people of the state will give a befitting lesson to this corrupt and inefficient government at an appropriate time," Yadav added.
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