MP: Ready To Join Hands With Bharti To Put An End To Drinking Menace In State, Says Congress MLA

Congress legislator Sanjay Yadav on Saturday said he is keen to join senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Uma Bharti’s campaign against alcohol consumption in the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh and will invite her to villages where the sale of illicit liquor is going on.

“I am going to ring Bharti today and fix up a meeting with her in Bhopal. I am eager to join hands with her to put an end to the drinking menace which is ruining families in Madhya Pradesh,” Yadav, who represents the Bargi assembly constituency, told PTI over the phone from Jabalpur.

“If Bhartiji really wants to work for discouraging drinking with government support, she first has to stop the sale of liquor unlawfully sold in villages under the regime's protection,” he said. Bharti, a former chief minister, has been demanding regulation of alcohol across the state ahead of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government’s announcement of a new liquor policy.  Yadav said he will invite Bharti to the villages where he said liquor is being sold unlawfully.

“If she is not trying to revive her political career, she should come along with me and see how families are being ruined due to drinking,” the lawmaker said. Assembly polls are due in MP by the end of the year. Two days ago, Bharti had tied cows in front of a liquor shop at Orchha in Niwari district as part of her campaign against alcohol and fed them hay as she called upon people to drink milk and shun liquor.

She has said that the government should not “cash in” on some people’s habit of drinking. Speaking at a Republic Day function, MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had said that the state would come up with a new policy that would discourage drinking. On Friday, state Home minister Narottam Mishra had called Bharti’s move to tie cows in front of a liquor shop as part of her campaign a “good thing”.

Former Union minister Bharti had thrown cow dung at the same Orchha liquor shop last June and had hurled a stone into a liquor vend in Bhopal in March last year. While Bharti had started off by seeking total prohibition in the state, she is now demanding regulation of alcohol sales.