Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Uma Bharti said that she cannot stay silent in the face of adharma (unrighteousness) and injustice just to deny the opposition an (political) opportunity. Her statement came on Twitter on Tuesday in context of her continuing anti-liquor tirade.
Bharti has been protesting against ‘arbitrary’ permissions to liquor shops, especially those close to educational institutions, religious places and poor settlements and those with a linked ahata—a semi-enclosed space where liquor could be drunk.
The BJP leader had earlier this month announced that the next step of her anti-liquor campaign would commence on November 7 from when she would stop staying at home or inside any building until a policy for controlled sale of liquor was formed.
However, on Monday and Tuesday, she visited two liquor shops in Bhopal, close to a temple and a school respectively, to demand their closure. On Monday evening, she visited a liquor shop and ahata situated near a temple at Ayodhya bypass on Raisen Road in Bhopal and removed the net enclosing the ahata forcibly. She sat there for some time and when the local residents and others gathered, she spoke about the illegality of such ahatas.
After a while, she left the place and in a video message said that she did not want to embarrass Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who was her brother, and also expressed apprehension that the liquor mafia might ‘attack’ her.
On Tuesday, she came up with a series of tweets—both in the morning and again in the evening—attacking the BJP government in the state over the permission to open ahatas with liquor shops. In the morning, she said that she had come to know that the liquor shops had permission from the state government to open ahatas, but this was illegal as it violated the laws regarding drunken driving. She added that a government cannot make a policy that was against pre-existing law (on drunken driving) and such action was illegal and arbitrary.
She added that allowing liquor shops and ahatas close to religious places, schools and settlements of labourers was a big sin, adharma and a crime because these people did not have vehicles or drivers like affluent people who consumed liquor at hotel bars. “We portray ourselves to be well wishers of these (poor) people. We portray ourselves as devout and religious. It will be better that we rectify these things soon.”
Later on Tuesday evening, after visiting the liquor shop and ahata adjacent to a school at Karond Square in Bhopal, Bharti said that she had said on Monday that the liquor mafia would attack her and this attack is in the form of spreading propaganda and misinformation.
“An example of what I said yesterday was seen today when suddenly during interaction with people, someone asked me why was I giving the opposition an opportunity to weaken the government? My clear answer is that ahatas are illegal. Giving permission to ahatas is illegal and if the government issues an order to close down all illegal ahatas in state, then the government will only be praised and opposition will not get any opportunity,” Bharti said, adding that she cannot stay silent to deny the opportunity to the opposition.
“What I can do is that if the government issues an order to close down the ahatas, I will go from my Shyamla Hills home in Bhopal to the Vallabh Bhavan (state secretariat) with a lamp in my hand and perform aarti of the government and administration of Madhya Pradesh and hail them. Would the opposition get an opportunity then?” Bharti said in the tweets.
